Dinosaur National Monument/Colorado (and Utah).

I have written about Dino before but it deserves another look.  This is a great but fairly unknown landscape location.  It is well-known for its dinosaur fossils, but for the landscape photographer it is  just as much of a winner.  I must that admit despite having lived in Colorado at one time and having visited this state many times, until 2007 I had never been to Dino.  Certainly if you are in northwest Colorado, southwest Wyoming or northeast Utah you will be rewarded for making the short trip.  There are (or were) three entrances to the monument.  Traveling from east to west (as I was) will first bring you to a fairly short dead-end road.  It was worth the trip in and out as this was the one place that I found water to include in my comps.  This is a semi-desert area and the small lake the lives there makes for oasis appearing images.

Good Morning Dinosaur N.M.

I moved on to the second entrance.  This rim of the canyon drive can compete with any in North America.  In fact this high desert habitat had a different look and feel to it than anywhere I have been.  The vistas here are beautiful and the rest of my day was spent driving, hiking and photographing all that I saw.  Photographically this is really two different places.  It is on one hand a park of canyon vistas with beautiful color displays of red earth and multi colored rock.  Then as you wind yourself away from the edge you find you are in the middle of a rock park.  Red rock and a rainbow of other colors.

The canyon drive (and hike).  There are plenty of pull off viewing areas along this drive.  You could produce a book of great photos without ever leaving the overlook areas.  You do however need to work to find the best views and compositions.  In my day spent here I witnessed an un-countable number of people, many with top notch camera gear, park their car and get out only to make all of their pictures without ever again moving.  I found that by moving just past the parking lots I could find the most dramatic views.  I also hiked 4 or 5 times from the parking lots to find a view different than what others were finding.  At least one hike was a long one to the edge of the canyon but here I found Junipers and other plants to use in the foreground of my comps.

The big view

A longer lens

My longest hike of the day.  The foreground foliage is part of the comp.

Here I continue to use small amounts of foreground subjects in my comp.

Craggy old tree trunks, alive or deceased make great objects to balance your comp with distant backgrounds

One of the failings of our park service is that they think the only place anyone could possibly want to park to make a photo would be where those big vistas exist.  The rock garden portion of Dino has few places to pull over so you will have squeeze your car gently off of the road in most places.

There is nothing like the warm tones of red rock aligned with the cool blue tones of sky.  The angle of rock and sky in this photo is a very deliberate choice

Lone rock form

When I find an interesting rock I try to find more than one comp that works.  Nice clouds with blue skies also add a lot to this type of shot.  Remember those clouds are a part of the comp and need to be composed

There are many rules of composition.  Rule of thirds, power points, leading lines etc.  I have taught all of these at one time or another.  Still sometimes a straight up comp is all there is.  If the color, shape and texture are interesting I say go ahead and do it.  They can be more powerful than you may think.  There are still comp choices to make.  How much sky or rock.  Short or long lenses. Every image needs attention to compositional detail

There is wildlife in Dino as well.  I settled for a few White-tailed Prairie Dogs although I did search for the rare and endangered Black-footed Feret with no success

I only had two disappointments at Dino and both were self-created.  My timing dictated that I never got to work the canyon vistas or the rock forms at sunrise or sunset.  The other (time issues again) was that I never went in the third entrance to view and photograph the dinosaur fossils.  I very much consider that a part of nature photography.

Enjoy Dinosaur National Monument http://www.nps.gov/dino/index.htm