Photography in the National Parks

I have been to probably at least 30 national parks in the US, maybe more. I always have one reaction when I enter a national park for the first time = WOW. I have several photo albums full of national park photos - all film, all with mediocre developing. Now, several years later, I’m getting a chance to revisit many of these parks. In other words, I’m getting a do-over.

However, since I still work full time, these do-over trips are usually blitz visits where I do not have time to explore a park in depth, but I must content myself with stopping at the major overlooks.

There is another problem, which became apparent on my most recent trip out west. We were in Arches National Park in Utah, which is considered part of the geologic area called the Colorado Plateau. This is high desert - arid and hot and situated at about 9,000 feet above sea level. I live in Michigan. We are generally between 500 and 600 feet above sea level. In any case, we got to a feature in the park called “double arch” which has two massive arches, one behind the other. You can take a short walk over to these impressive structures and sit under them in the shade or explore further back.

We started walking over and my daughter, who is in her mid 30’s and in shape, was complaining about the heat. It was 102 degrees F, but it’s a dry heat and it wasn’t really bothering me so I said so. She and my husband reached the arches first and I was faced with about a 20-foot uphill climb involving some flat rocks and a slope. In other words, nothing major. I finally managed it, and collapsed next to my husband on the lower ledge of the front arch. I was literally praying I would not pass out or throw up. I was gasping so hard for breath, I couldn’t even answer my husband as he repeatedly asked me if I was OK. It took me about 10 minutes to recover enough to walk slowly back to the car. For every overlook we stopped at after that, I stayed pretty close to the car and just photographed what I could see from there.

I started the diet 2 days ago, and I’ve stared exercising again. That scared me. The next trip I hope to be 20 pounds lighter and a lot more aerobically fit.

The other issues I had on this trip are trying to figure out how to convey the massive size of a rock structure in a photograph, which is really impossible unless you have people in the photo for scale, and the other issue was exposure in some areas. In Rocky Mountain National Park, you generally have bright overcast skies and dark mountains with snow making the contrast situation extreme. I found myself wishing for a graduated neutral density filter, which I used to use all the time with my film cameras. I guess I need to order one.

In four days last weekend, I went to three national parks and one national monument, which was truly a blitz visit, but I’m just glad to be able to get back to these parks with a decent camera and occasionally to a park I have not visited before, which on this trip was Arches. It, indeed has the WOW factor.