Photography

• Large-format Photography
• Home Color Darkroom
• The Automatic Camera and the Dilution of Effort
• The Landscape Photographer
• Bryce Canyon
• Fisher Towers
• Burr Trail
• San Rafael Swell
• Saturation
• Film
• Chemistries

Large-format Photography

Introduction

Large format. To some photographers it means an old technique that isn't needed any more, to others it means an esoteric type of photography used only for very specialized needs, and to some of us, it's the only true form of photography! The old image of a photographer, bent over, looking into an enormous camera with a cloth over his head is an enduring one. Yes, shooting large format is more difficult than shooting 35mm, but the rewards, an enormous piece of film with your image on it, is sure worth the extra effort.

Large format refers to any film larger than 2 1/4 inches across. Large format film is usually found in individual sheets, not in rolls, with 4 x 5 inch size being by far the most popular. 5 x 7 inches and 8 x 10 inches are also popular film sizes, and even some cameras with sizes smaller than 4 x 5 can be found.

Cameras that accommodate 4 x 5 film are likewise larger and heavier than 35mm cameras. They are simple cameras, typically with no electronic parts, no meter, usually no focusing system other than a ground glass in the back upon which the image is projected by the lens (upside down and backwards!). The lenses, because they must illuminate an area at least 6 inches across (for 4 x 5 film) are large and expensive. Each lens typically has its own shutter and iris.

Shooting large format is no simple and quick task; it is a deliberate, time consuming process fraught with opportunities to mess up the image. There is no such thing as a large format snapshot! Checklists and routine are the name of the game here. Due to the expense of buying and processing 20 square inches of film for each shot, large-format photographers learn quickly to edit his shots before he takes them, not later on the light table. Keeping careful records of camera settings will help a great deal in the early years of shooting large format, but soon you too can be turning out those remarkable shots that easily enlarge to perfectly-sharp 20 x 24 inch prints!

Pros and Cons

Pros:
Picture quality: sharpness and smoothness of large-format film is unparalleled.
More deliberate shots: the nature of the large-format camera will slow you down and make you think about what you are doing. And the relatively greater expense per shot means you're less likely to waste film on iffy shots.
Individual shot development: you can tailor the development of each shot to get the exact exposure you want.
Movements: the real advantage of large-format cameras is the ability to move the lens relative to the film to change the plane of focus or correct the perspective.

Cons:
Slow: getting a shot requires several minutes of work. No snapshots here!
Much heavy equipment: a large camera, heavy lenses, film holders, sturdy tripod, meters and other accessories are the minimum.
Scanning and enlarging requires special equipment: usually expensive equipment.
And speaking of expenses: film and processing costs are much more expensive than 35mm per shot.

To get an idea of the resolution available on large format film, here is the full-sized image of a 4x5 inch transparency:

Small Rivulet in American Fork Canyon, Utah

Now here is an enlarged portion of that shot:

And here is an enlarged portion of that shot:

A drum scan of this would look even sharper and smoother.

Equipment

Cameras:
There are two types of large-format cameras.

"View cameras", or "monorails", are used mostly in the studio. They are rails, about 20 inches long, along which two standards can move. The front standard holds the lens, and the rear standard holds the film. They are connected by flexible light-tight bellows. Both standards can be positioned anywhere on the rail to accommodate any aspect of focusing lenses of different focal lengths. Additionally, both standards can be tilted forward and back, swung side to side, raised, lowered, shifted from side to side. More expensive monorails will have gears and gauges to assist the photographer in reproducing specific movements. Monorails are not meant to withstand exposure to the elements, and must be returned to a fitted case for safe transport.

"Field cameras", or "flatbed cameras", are meant for outdoor use. They are shallow boxes ("bodies") made of wood or metal with a front door that hinges down to become the "bed". The front standard, normally stored inside the box, can them be slid out along rails in the inside of the front door. The rear standard is incorporated into the body. Because the rear standard is part of the body, the necessarily compact nature of the front standard, and the more conservative size of the bellows, available movements are more restricted (but fortunately not needed much in outdoor shooting situations). Field cameras will take a hit against rock without damage( and with most metal bodies not even leave a scratch).

Cameras have a ground glass back onto which you can project the image from the lens. The image is always rendered upside down and backwards, but you'll get used to it pretty quick. Better backs have a fresnel lens in front of the ground glass to make the image brighter. The ground glass is located in a movable "back". After the camera is focused, the film holder is inserted in front of the ground glass, and the back has springs that allow to ground glass to move backwards to accommodate the film holder. The plane of the film should now be at the exact same location the ground glass was, so, literally, what you see is what you get. Some cameras require you to use a dark cloth to block incident light on the ground glass, other use a set of doors that open up to form a sort of "tunnel" around the ground glass that will block most (but not all) the incident light. I've found that dark cloths are rarely needed, and when they are a shirt or jacket works fine.

Lenses:

Most large-format lenses are a combination of three things: the lens (a front half and a back half), the shutter (handling both the aperture and the shutter itself), and the lendboard. The entire assembly can be swapped out for a different lens by simply releasing the lensboard and inserting the new lensboard. There are no large-format zoom lenses. Some lenses, called convertibles, can be used with only one half of the lens present, to give different focal lengths at reduced maximum apertures. You'll find that for a single focal-length lens, these are pretty big. Large-format lenses need to cover the whole film (and some to spare to allow for movements), so they are designed to produce a very large image area. Some lenses, particularly the Optars and Ektars, are very light, fairly fast lenses of the Tessar design. This is a good starter lens, and most used cameras will come with one of these lenses. As you get better, you'll find some spare cash to get a better lens, one with a different focal length, perhaps one with a little more coverage. Each lens you have will need it's own shutter (most lenses come with their own) and lens board.

Barrel lenses. Some lenses don't need or use a shutter. They will have an aperture, but they depend on a shutter built into the camera body itself. The lenses are called "barrel lenses", and they only work with "press cameras", field cameras that have folac plane shutters (the very-available Speed Graphics are the best example). Barrel lenses are cheaper because of the fewer operating parts.

Because the film is so much larger than 35mm frames, focal length is also extended. A 90mm LF lens is equivalent to an 28mm lens on your SLR. And a 210mm lens is equivalent to a 70mm. And as with all longer lenses, the depth of field becomes much narrower, so the lens must be stopped down much farther than you are accustomed to in smaller formats (f/16 to f/64 is very common, rarely anything wider is used). But the depth of field problem is nearly as bad as it seems, because with camera movements the plane of focus can be moved anywhere you need it, compensating for the DOF limitations of these focal lengths.

Film Holders.

There are two types of film holder being used for sheet film, plus roll holders that fit on the back of a camera for exposing 120 roll film.

Sheet film holders are two-sided units just under an inch thick. Each side has a place to insert film, and each has a "dark slide" to keep the film from being exposed before it is placed into the camera. To use them, you need a darkroom or what is called a "changing bag", a sort of portable "dark bag" with two sleves for your arms (put the empty holders and a box of film inside, seal it up, then reach in and load the holders, one sheet at a time). Loading holders is no trouble at all once you've practiced a bit with an test sheet in the light. Sometimes you must watch for dust, though, that can get on the film before exposure, creating dust spots. Sheet film holders have places where you can write to help keep track of your shots, and the dark slides have a white stripe on one side (white-side out means unexposed) and a black stripe on the other (black side out means exposed). After you've exposed both sides, you put it away until you can safely remove the film and replace it with fresh.

Quickload and Readyload are the names of the other kind of holder. This sheet film is purchased in a paper sleeve, two films each. When you are ready for exposure, the film packet is inserted into the special holder, the sleve withdrawn, and the exposure made. The sleeve is pushed back in, and then you can turn the packet over an expose the other side. Polaroid sheet film and prints (which can be proccessed instantly) operate on the same principle, but Polaroid packets have only a single sheet, plus some chemicals for processing.

Meters:

Large-format cameras have no meters. You'll need your own. If you have an SLR camera that you want to bring, you can set the SLR ISO to match the large-format film ISO, and then use your SLR camera reading to set your exposure. But most large-format photographers end up with thier own spotmeter or incident meter (or one meter that does both).

Tripod:

There is no hand holding of large-format cameras. Despite what you've seen in the movies (newspaper men at a press conference, etc.), if you want any depth of field, you'll need a tripod to steady the long exposures you have when the lens is stopped down. A good heavy tripod is best (minimizes vibrations), but even a light one will do if you are careful. With a camera as large as these, wind is the enemy. It doesn't take much of a gust to shake the camera, but you'll soon learn where best to stand to block any gusts, and how to look into the wind and recognize gusts heading your way (tall grass is our friend).

Accessories:

You'll also need some thinks like cable releases, maybe a dark cloth (to block the light when viewing the focusing screen, and a loupe magnifier to looking at the screen during critical focusing. Sometimes things like changing tents (portable darkrooms) are handy if you are in the field and need to reload you sheet film holders.

Photos courtesy B&H Photo, the best mail order house in the US.

Movements

Movements. The real advantage large-format cameras have over fixed-lens cameras (both small- and medium-format). Movements mean to move the lens relative to the plane of the film. SLR cameras have a fixed lens, so the focal plane is always parallel to the film plane. This means that an SLR can deepen its focus only by closing down the lens and increasing the DOF. But large-format cameras are not restricted this way. If I need to focus on an interesting design in a dried mud flat, I can tilt the lens forward a bit, which moves the plane of focus down also. If the mud is flat, I can have the entire mud flat in focus with the lens wide open! When I close the shutter down I am still widening the depth of field, but now it is getting wider relative to the new plane of focus (up and down in this example). So by using lens tilt I can make up in large part for the lack of DOF the longer lenses have.

Camera movements demonstrated by the Shen Hao 4x5 field camera, as seen in a recent advertizement.

The other advantage of movements is to correct perspective. We've all taken shots of a building, and despite out best try, got a severely keystoned photo. The keystoning (looking smaller towards the top of the building) is caused because the film plane was at an angle to the plane of the building (usually the face). With a large-format camera you can set up the camera back to exactly parallel the face of a building. I know what you're thinking: if you set up parallel, you'll be looking at the bottom half of the building, and half your shot will be the ground. Here's what you do: raise the lens up. By raising the lens (but not the back standard), the camera will see only what is above it, while the film plane hasn't moved. This correction can also be applied to the side using lens shift.

By using tilt and shifts, you can correct most of the problems that fixed-lens cameras encounter. It will take a little longer to set up the shot, but the shot you get looks so much more natural to the eye.

This shot of a barn on old Mormon Row in Teton National park was made using three movements: the lens was shifted up slightly and to the side slightly to preserve as best I could the dimensions of the lit face of the barn, and also there was some side-tilt to keep the face of the barn in the focal plane.

Practical Considerations

There are a few things you must consider before buying your first large-format camera.

Where will you get your film developed? If you are shooting black & white film, then developing it yourself is certainly not difficult. But if you want to shoot color film, especially reversal film, then you must have a pro lab nearby. Most pro labs will unload your holders and develop your film for less than a dollar a sheet (cheaper if you unload the holders yourself and bring the film to the lab in the nifty triple-enclosed box the film originally came in).

Or you might consider processing it yourself at home (please refer to my Home Color Darkroom article on this site for a detailed discussion). This is a much more expensive option (at first), but can be a lot of fun. Processing it yourself gives you the added ability to tailor-process your film (for partial-stop pulls and pushes).

Another consideration is: what will you do with your marvelous big sheets of film? Large-format enlargers are much more expensive than small- and medium-format enlargers, and processing trays or tubes are likewise larger. Large-format film enlarges to 16x20 or 20x24 very nicely, and you'll be wanting to print it that big. Are you ready to move your darkroom to that size, or are you willing to pay a pro lab to make those big prints for you? Also, big prints cost a lot more to frame than smaller ones, so plan ahead for that, too.

Scanning, too, requires some special equipment. There are many scanners that come with 35mm transparency adapters, but not many will scan a 4x5 or larger film sheet. Those that do are typically flat-bed scanners with either trays beneath the lamp, or ones with a separate lamp assembly the fits above the film. In either case, there are compromises when using a flat-bed scanner, usually the quality of the scan. Higher-quality scanners for 4x5 film exists, but get very expensive very quickly. The ultimate is the drum scan, which you can have done for under $100, typically. Also consider that 4x5 scans run 300 to 600 MB for a single file, so if you plan to do any digital processing on your computer you'll need a lot of RAM to handle the file (you'll need 1- to 2-GB of RAM for the big scans). If you are scanning for the web you can make much smaller files, but if you are scanning for large-format digital prints, you'll want the highest resolution (hence largest file size) possible. The best digital prints are made on the very expensive LightJet printers (or the like, there are several brand names out there) that print digitally directly onto RA paper (the type used to print color negatives). These prints can be absolutely beautiful, and most large-format photographers sell these prints in their galleries. I've found printing up to 20x24 in my home darkroom to be the cheapest option for me, your mileage may vary.

For example, here is my home large-format color darkroom. To the right is a Saunders 4x5 enlarger. In the center you see the Jobo CPA processor (will handle processing tubes for both film and paper up to 20x24 inches). You can see both the 16x20 paper tube (long thin on in the back with an orange ring in the middle )and the 20x24 tube (largest black tube). Not pictured are the sink and large basins for rinsing prints, the chemical storage closet, the dark closet for storing papers of various makes and sizes, and the numersous accessories that accompany the enlarger (film holders, lenses, alighnment tools). This photo represents about $2500 worth of equipment.

So, you want to give it a try.

Well, first you'll need a camera and a lens. Get something used, 4x5 format. You can get a pretty nice used Graflex Speed or Super Graphic camera on eBay for about $400. These will typically come with a lens in working order, and maybe a couple film holders. You can use your SLR for the meter. Graphlex cameras will resale for what you paid, so don't worry too much that you'll get a camera you can't get rid of (they haven't been produced since 1973, so the market had pretty much stabilized a decade ago). These are metal cameras that stand up to abuse fairly well. Any lens in the 120 to 140mm range will do nicely.

Film. Try your hand at B&W first. You can develop these at home with minimal trouble, and then contact print them (but I'll warn you now it will only make you hungry for bigger prints).

Lone Tree in Cornfield, near SD/MN border, tray developed.

My Shooting Proceedure

Here is what happens when I see something I want to shoot:

1. Get the tripod in position, mount the camera (I use quick release plates to speed this up). Level the camera with a pocket bubble level.

2. Open camera, pull out front standard, put my selected lens in the standard.

3. Open the aperture to its widest setting, press the "press focus" lever to open the shutter.

4. Focus for my preliminary examination of the scene. Sometimes I select the wrong lens, and need to replace it. Compose the shot.

5. If there is anything rectilinear in the shot (like a building), I correct the perspective by using rise, fall and shift.

6. Check critical focus. Since the depth of field is limited, here is where I use lens tilt to bring as much of the scene into sharp focus with the lens wide open, then stop the lens down to F/16 or below for shooting.

7. Close the press focus lever. Double check by looking into the lens.

8. Select an unexposed film holder, insert it into the camera back.

9. Set the shutter speed, and cock the shutter. Double check settings.

10, Withdraw the dark slide, check that nothing is changed in the scene, wait for the wind to die out, and release the shutter.

11. Replace the dark slide (black-side out), and pull the holder out of the camera. Write my shooting notes for that shot.

12. Remove the lens, close up the camera, pack everything back to the car.

And that's the quick version!

Home Color Darkroom

Overview                                                                                     This article should be printed in landscape orientation.

While it may seem daunting at first, it really is possible for you to develop and print color film at home.

"Why should I bother", you ask? Look back at the greats of photography. Weston, Adams, Jackson, Brady, and more, they all did their own developing and printing. Why? Kodak existed while most of them were working, so why didn't they sent their rolls of film to the lab for processing like all the other photographers did? They did it themselves for a very important reason: to really know your film, and to really know how to translate the scene to the photograph you want, you must develop it yourself, and not rely on some lab flunky and luck to do it for you. And if you want to know what kind of picture you've taken, you need to print it big and put it on the wall. In a simplistic sense, until you can control each stage of the making of your photo, shooting, developing, and printing, you are doing only one third of the photographers job; you're a skilled camera operator at best while someone else, or even a dumb machine, is doing the other two-thirds. This tutorial is provided to give you an idea of what the rest of the process is like, what it requires, and maybe what to expect.

The primary difference between color developing and B&W developing is the issue of rates. Black & white emulsions have a single layer (or two almost-identical layers in the case of variable-contrast paper), so the rate at which the developer soaks into the emulsion isn't as important as the total amount of developer that enters the emulsion. For example, you can develop in cold developer (slow rate) as long as you increase the time of development with no ill effects.

The same is not true for color development. Color emulsions are (for this simplified discussion) three layers thick, each layer responding to and developing into a different color. If the developer soaks in too fast, the lower layers will develop faster than expected (too warm), and the film will come out tinted. The same is true for cold development (too slow), where the top layers will be developed faster than the bottom layers.

The main rule in color development is constant temperature and consistent times. beyond that it is very much like B&W developing. Except color darkrooms are completely black.

Color film and color papers respond to all colors of light. Black & white film does too, but not B&W paper. Consequently, B&W darkrooms can operate with a safely light on during enlargement and paper developing. Color darkrooms can't. Any light in the darkroom will expose the paper, so enlargement is done in complete darkness. But development can be done with the lights on. Here's why:

Equipment

There are two main pieces of equipment needed to develop color film at home: the processor and the enlarger.

The first and most important is the processor. The processor does one main thing: maintains a constant temperature. There are a number of processor configurations. The simplest is a deep tray with a heater. To develop color film you load the film onto reels in the dark, put them into a "daylight" tank (a light-tight canister with an opening at the top where chemicals can be poured in and out that will not admit light through the use of light traps built into the lid). You then put the tank into the water bath, along with beakers of all the chemicals you'll need. With the aid of a stopwatch, you pour each chemical into the tank for the allotted time, agitating constantly, then pour them out when you are finished. It's rudimentary, but it's cheap. Print trays can also be used in a similar fashion, by placing developing trays into a larger temperature-controlled bath of water.

The next step up in processors is the slot processor. It is a large rectangular tank of water that is held at the appropriate temperature with a circulating heater. Inside the tank are the slots, each of which can be filled with a different chemical. Processing is done in complete darkness, and the film, usually sheet film, is placed into the developer slot and gently agitated, and after the development time it is removed and placed into the next slot. It is a more hands-on experience, but it's a bit slower. It works best if your tank is the same size as the film you are processing. These can be used for processing prints, but the size of the slots must be large enough to accommodate the larger print size.

Nova Slot Processor photo courtesy Jobo USA.

The next step up, and the one most home processors use, is the rotary-tube processor. This is a large water bath with room on the side to hold chemical bottles. The main part of the processor is a water tray into which the tube with your film is placed. At one end there is a rotating magnet or cog to which your tank will attach. The rotating motor will rotate the tube back and forth until you shut it off, so all the agitation is taken care of. The bottom part of the tube will sit in the water bath to maintain the temperature of the film and chemicals. Some processors also have a "lift", and device with a lever that allows you to tilt the film tube up and drain its contents. The lift also has a funnel-like opening to allow you to pour chemicals into the tube without removing the tube from the lift. Rotary processors are equally at home developing film or prints. Jobo is the most popular brand.

The Jobo CPA processor, with 6 1L chemistry bottles and 4 graduates.

...With the tube for 20x24 inch prints mounted (in foreground are
the developer, color developer, and blix for the R-3 chemistry.

The Jobo with the lift raised by hand. Used chemicals
drain out the tube to the far left, and new chemicals
are poured into the funnel at the top of the lift.

Here you see part of the light trap built into the lid of a processing
tube. Chemicals poured in the the top (to the right here) flow into
the cup, and when the tube is horizontal the fluid leaks out of the
top of the cup into the tube.

This is the assembly for processing 4x5 sheet film.
Each reel will hold 6 sheets, then the "tree" is placed
in the tube and the lid sealed on. Light-tightness in
ensured because the fluid added to the tube flows
thru the center tube to a light trap at the bottom.

The next step up would be automatic rotary-tube processors, where the entire process can be programmed, and the machine will handle the rotation, filling and dumping of chemicals and rinses, the entire process. They get pretty expensive.

The top of the line in home processors are the line processors. These are a series of chemical tanks, all light-tight, with a transport mechanism to move the paper from one bath to the next. Used primarily in pro labs, they consume a lot of chemicals, and must be kept running constantly to be used efficiently. They are rarely found in the home darkroom.

The second piece of equipment is the color enlarger. Designed exactly like the B&W enlarger except for the light source, they tend to be made by the same manufacturers and will be a little more expensive. All color enlargers are of the diffusion type, and have a color filter system built into the light source. The lamp, usually a halogen lamp, shines through a set of three dichroic filters (for this reason color heads are often called dichroic heads). Dichroic filters are made of glass. They have been given a transparent coating of a very exact thickness, just right to allow only one wavelength (color) of light to pass through. The three colors are magenta, cyan, and yellow (to the eye they look green, red, and blue, respectively, because those colors are being reflected off the filter and not allowed to pass). Dichroic filters are used because after extended exposure to bright lights they will not fade. The filters are typically held out of the light path until they are "dialed in". The front of the color head has three dials, M, C, and Y, for adding just as much or as little of each color as needed for the film and paper being used.

The color head on my Saunders 4x5 enlarger. Blue, cyan, yellow
is the order from the top down.

It is possible to use a standard B&W (tungsten lamp) enlarger for color printing, but you'll need a set of color filters to use while printing.

Color Negative Developing

The process of developing color negative film is much like that for developing B&W film. The process, designated C-41 by Kodak, involves a developer and a combined solution of bleach and fixer, known in the lab as blix. The developer acts like B&W developer, reducing exposed grains of silver bromide to black silver metal. The bleach then oxidizes the solid silver and dissolves it, while at the same time changing some previously-colorless dye molecules around each grain of silver so they are now intensely colored. This way everywhere the light hit the film a dye cloud is formed. The film is designed to that blue light exposure will develop the yellow dye, red will develop the cyan dye, and green will develop the magenta dye, thus producing the complementary color set we see in color negative film. The fixer part of the blix binds the silver and washes it away. It is the equivalent of a very rapid fixer, because the intent is to wash out all the silver, not just the silver not involved in making the image. Rinsing is rapid, rarely taking more than four or five minutes.

The developer is, like B&W developer, sensitive to oxidation, but the blix requires oxidation to work properly. Long-time storage of the blix will result, however, in the formation of sulfur deposits in the bottle.

C-41 chemistry can be purchased in a number of forms. There are several kits available with all the needed chemicals, including a rinsing agent (that both wets and stabilizes the emulsion for spotless drying). There are also room temperature kits available, that are designed to slow the chemistry down enough that the exact temperature of processing becomes not so important. Results form these kits can be iffy, however.

Reversal Film Developing

Developing reversal film (also called "slides" or "transparencies") is much more tricky than negatives. The reversal process, that of making the portions of the film that were not exposed show up, is the reason why. The chemistry is designated E-6 by Kodak, and they sell a nice 5L kit for home use.

The development process starts with a first developer, much like a B&W developer, reducing the exposed silver to solid metallic silver. This silver is then deactivated towards further chemistry. What is on the film at this point is a negative of the scene that was shot. The film is then rinsed well and from this point on the process can be done in room light (but isn't if you are using a rotary tube processor, more for convenience than necessity).

Next comes the reversal exposure. In bulk labs this is done with a fluorescent lamp, but the kits also provide a chemical agent that does the same thing. The reversal exposure is needed to expose all the previously undeveloped silver bromide, to activate it for the next developer.

The color developer is more oxygen sensitive than the first developer, and is used to develop the just exposed grains of silver bromide in the film. This developer creates a positive image made of 'active' silver metal.

Then comes the pre-bleach, to deactivate the color developer and rewet the film.

The bleach is then added. It is best to have the bleach well oxygenated by using a fish tank bubbler or by putting it into a half-empty bottle and shaking it up for 30 seconds. Here, as in color negative film, the silver created by the color developer (corresponding to the positive image) is dissolved and the color dye clouds are formed around each grain.

The the fixer is used to dissolve all the silver into solution and remove it from the film. Again, it is a very rapid fixer, and rinses out quickly.

Finally, the film is dipped for a moment in a solution of distilled water and final rinse, containing a wetting agent and an antifungal agent.

The entire process takes about 40 minutes, and is done at 38 degrees C (100 degrees F).

Printing the Color Negative

Printing a color negative is very difficult to do without a color enlarger. This is because for each pack of paper and for each film you must establish the exact color filtration that gives you a neutral print. Finding the filter pack the first time can be a time consuming process, but if you have some nice shots of a gray and white card, and a color panel, then the process is sped up a lot. The filter pack, usually something like 35Y20M0C, describes the settings of the color filters in the enlarger that will allow you to make a print of a gray card that will look gray. The filter pack will vary for each film you use and for each paper, and will sometimes change as the paper ages. Good recordkeeping is essential if you don't want to repeat this somewhat boring task. By the way, paper for printing color negatives has a blue dye on the surface, meant to compensate somewhat for the orange mask of the film.

Once the filter pack is established, you can start printing some of your negatives. The process is much like B&W printing, but after the exposure is found you must spend a little time with fine-tuning the colors for that negative. All color adjustments will be close to the primary filter pack, and are used to adjust the lighting of the scene, not the film/paper combination. One aspect of this process is how to deal with the colors themselves. Since you are printing a color negative, if you add cyan to the filter pack, your print will look like you removed cyan from the image. If your first print of a negative looks too yellow, add some yellow to the filter pack to compensate. That's the counter-intuitive way color darkroom lovers start thinking.

Now that you have an exposed paper (which you have made in utter darkness), place it in a developing tube and turn on the lights, or place it into a slot and get it developed right away, still in the dark (once you've stopped the development and gotten the print into the blix you can turn the lights back on). The development process for negative papers is called RA-4 by Kodak, and while some RA-4 kits exist for home use, getting small bottles of RA-4 Replenisher is a nice way to go. Replenisher chemicals are meant to be reused. They are first mixed by diluting the stock solution, then adding a little 'starter' to get some bromide ions in the developer, so it won't be too powerful at first. From then on you collect the waste, and for every liter you add about 400 mL of fresh replenisher and reuse the chemical. It's a nice way to stretch your chemicals, and your budget.

The chemicals you use are the developer and the blix. Sometimes a stop bath (just like B&W) is used after the developer. And this process is fast! The developer takes 45 seconds, and the blix only 2 minutes. Again, because a very rapid fixer is used, rinsing takes only two or three minutes.

Printing the Transparency

Printing a transparency is also done using a reversal process. There are two reversal chemistries, with very different properties and behaviors.

Designated R-3000 (for home use) or R-3 (for commercial labs), the Ektachrome process by Kodak is the easier one to use. Unfortunately, R-3000 is no longer being made for sale in the United States. I'm currently using a commercial-sized supply of R-3 replenisher and it's working out very well. When printed on Kodak Radiance III or Fuji Type-35 paper, it is remarkable easy to get a great print using this process. The R-3 process uses a first developer, then a reversal exposure, then the color developer, followed by the blix. The R-3000 process omits the reversal exposure, instead including a chemical reversing agent in the color developer.

The second process has a better reputation than R-3000, but I don't think it's earned any more. Ilfochrome, with chemistry designated as P30 (home use) or P3 (commercial), used to be known as Cibachrome. This process differs markedly from the Ektachrome process in that all the dye molecules are already present in the paper in their fully-colored form, and the chemistry is designed to bleach out the unwanted dyes in the image. This process uses a developer, a bleach (unlike the Ektachrome bleaches, this bleach is oxygen sensitive and works on dye molecules rather than silver metal), and a fixer. The P30 chemistry comes in a 2L kit, and is a bit expensive. Famed for the beauty of prints, the richness of colors and the deepness of it blacks, many of those qualities are things of the past, before the reformulaton of the P30 chemistry. The current chemistry and paper suffers from crossover (one color printing as a slightly different color) and it's maddening inability to get a proper filter pack, so I've abandoned this process. Most of the time it's very slow work, but when it does work, it is glorious!

One problem that all reversal processes suffer is high contrast. With negative film and paper, a partial exposure can be fixed in the enlarger. Because there is no reversal step, you can expose a negative as deep or thin as you like. If it's too thin, print it on high-contrast paper; if it's too deep, print it on low-contrast paper. With reversal film you lose that freedom. Because you are reversing the image, you see only the part of the film not originally exposed. If your shot is overexposed, there is little hope of rescue, and vice versa for underexposure. Consequently, there are few to no options for controlling contrast when printing reversal film. One technique that has arisen to assist printing Ilfochromes is the contrast mask. It is a B&W film that is sandwiched with the transparency and partially exposed. Any place the transparency was too thin the mask will be exposed more, and where the transparency was too dark the mask with be clear. Then the developed mask and the transparency are again sandwiched in the enlarger, rendering a lower contrast image of the original slide. Since Radiance paper is of lower contrast than Ilfochrome, this technique is rarely used in R-3 labs.

Color Chemistries

Cautions

Some aspects of doing color chemistry at home can be hazardous. The chemicals used in color developing are stronger than those used in B&W, and gloves are recommended to those with sensitive skin, and contact with chemicals in concentrated form is always discouraged. Additionally, if you are on a septic system the disposal of bulk amounts of chemicals can kill the bacteria if dumped too much at a time.

The Automatic Camera and the Dilution of Effort

The Modern Camera, And the Dilution of Effort.

An Essay on the Loss of Craft in Photography                             This article should be printed in landscape orientation.

    IN 1870, Dr. Ferdinand Hayden led an Army survey expedition into the Yellowstone area. He took with him two men he thought could capture the images of the area: artist Thomas Moran, and photographer William Henry Jackson. That Hayden chose wisely is proven by the tremendous legacy left by the men he selected. The collodion/albumen photographs that Jackson showed in Washington D.C. after the expedition were pivotal in the creation two years later of Yellowstone National Park, the first of its kind in the United States. Jackson is remembered to this day in the valley and town that still bear his name: Jackson Hole, and the town of Jackson, Wyoming^* (Moran is memorialized in Mt. Moran, the pretty mountain at the North end of the Teton range).

William Henry Jackson
American, Wyoming, 1870
Albumen print
20 3/16 x 16 3/4 in.

    Jackson worked primarily with a 20x24 inch wet-plate camera. He used the collodion process to make negatives, and then made albumen prints from them. The collodion process was by no means rapid. The typical exposure took at least 30 minutes of work (you can read about the process and see a video at the J. Paul Getty On-line Museum). First a glass plate was unpacked, cleaned, and then polished. Once the polish was carefully removed, a collodion solution (cellulose polymer dissolved in water with some chloride and bromide salts added to increase the silver activity; the solution needed to be prepared a week in advance) was poured on the plate which was then tilted to spread the thick solution evenly. Before the plate has a chance to dry, it is immersed for several minutes in a silver nitrate bath, and quickly transferred into the plate holder. The sensitized plate had about ten minutes before it began drying out, and once dry the image was useless. The plate holder was quickly taken to the already-focused camera, the long exposure made, and then back to the darkroom for immediate processing. The plate was removed from the holder, and developer was pored onto the latent image. After suitable developing time had elapsed, the plate was rinsed in water then fixed. This is the first place in the process where the photographer could then put the plate aside and start working on another photograph. The negative image embedded in the collodion was very fragile, and the plate needed to be varnished before it was again handled. The varnish was thick, and needed to be poured over the image carefully to not destroy the collodion.

    Needless to say, Jackson didn't fritter away any shots. The effort involved in making just one negative was too great to waste on scenes he didn't think had a chance of being very good. He could not afford to just walk up to a lake or canyon rim and set up the camera where he stood. He needed to study the area, spend days there if needed to find the camera locations that gave both the big picture of the area, and some feeling of how vast, how wonderful, and how unusual the West was. When he wanted a shot, he'd need to pack 200 pounds of equipment on a mule, get to the location, unpack the equipment into the tent that served as his darkroom, take the 50 pound 20x24 camera and tripod to the selected site, focus and prepare the camera (provided the wind wasn't too strong to destroy the long-exposure shot; if so, pack up and go back to camp), then back to the darkroom to prepare a plate. By this method he created a collection of wonderful landscapes.

    TWO YEARS AGO I was given some advice by a very good painter, "go out to shoot photographs with only one frame of film left." He told me to make one good shot, then come home. If I got it right away, good. If I had to search for three hours to get it, good. Of course, being new at photography, I ignored his advice, but I never forgot it.

    So like many young photographers with auto focus, auto wind, auto exposure cameras, I grabbed a handful of 36-exposure rolls, and started blasting away. A 5-roll afternoon wasn't that unusual. I'd shoot ten or twelve rolls a week and thought nothing of it. Film could be had for a couple dollars a roll, could be processed very inexpensively (down to a couple dimes a roll if I did it myself), and my Canon EOS5 camera sure made it easy to shoot film. I'd get a large stack of slides back from the processor (or out of the kitchen when I did it myself) that needed sorting. The sorting process was simple: throw away the bad shots. I'd keep any shot that was properly exposed and focused; dump the technically poor ones. Out of a roll I'd throw out half a dozen, and the rest would be scanned and put into archival sleeves.

    PRESENT DAY: I look back at those photographs, and I'm surprised how lousy they are. Of course the reason is obvious: in shooting 180 frames in five hours, there is no way I could be concentrating on making any of them good. I was practicing a form of random photography (the virtues of which are now being touted as Lomography): the more frames you shoot, the better the chance you'll get a good photograph. It's the biggest fallacy in photography, but I believe it is the operating philosophy of most young photographers.

    You see, present day photographs cost the photographer almost nothing. Consider the cost-per-frame of shooting a 36-exposure roll of slide film: $6 for the film, $4 for processing gives us a whopping $0.28 a frame. Few would deem that an impediment with their finger on the shutter release. Digital photography has made the situation all the worse. Once the camera is bought, each frame shot costs exactly nothing. At that cost, what's to stop an owner from just shooting everything and hope for the best? If you don't like it, delete it. If it's not quite right, fix it in Photoshop.

    But you can't fix where you stood to take the picture. You can't fix the angle of the sun. You can't fix a photograph that has no feeling, no composition, no life. It's necessary to prepare for some shots, time the young photographer is loath to spend when he can shoot five frames a second. You can't scout a location in a single afternoon. You need to see the place at different times of day, different times of the year, different weather conditions. Who's going to do all that standing around looking when they could be shooting another card full of images? Who is going to control the light and the background when they can just replace it in Photoshop? Who is going to spend fifteen minutes framing a shot when there are more shots just around the corner they might miss? Almost no one, it seems.

    Okay, there are times when you need to take a lot of images in a very short amount of time. Fires, parades, and weddings come to mind. But good shots are created. They just don't happen by chance. Every bad shot, seen by the public or not, is an indictment against the photographer who created it. It's evidence of the felony of haste, the offence of inattention, the criminal lack of preparation.

    The temptation is severe. After paying so much for the equipment, how dare the modern technologist not take full advantage of it? What if Jackson gave in to what was modern technology of his day (cellulose nitrate roll film was invented in 1881)? What would we think of him today if he went back with his new Brownie camera, dashed from viewpoint to viewpoint snapping off as many shots as he could, not hardly pausing to even look at where he's pointing the camera? Yet too many modern photographers do just that. They go back to the very places Jackson made famous and produce photographs that can't even compare to his. Using a car they see in a half day more places than Jackson saw in a week on horseback, and they are snapping pictures the whole way.

   WE HAVE SOMETHING TO GAIN by taking our time. Instead of shooting three rolls an hour, spend three hours on one photograph. Think about the scene. Is it really worth shooting? Will your cousin want to see it? [I don't mean will he comment appreciatively when you show it to him, I mean will he pay you to put it on his wall?] Is the light the best it could be? Would a different angle of the sun (either in the day or at a different time of year) make a better shot? Could you get a better shot if the clouds were different? Do you have the right film in the camera to create the look that best fits the subject? Does your framing of the shot and the composition convey the feeling of the subject that first made you stop and linger on it? Do you even know how the scene or subject made you feel? If you don't know, how can you expect your photograph to successfully convey it?

    There are literally dozens of similar questions that should be asked by the photographer for every scene before the camera is even out of the bag. Will someone with a digital or automatic camera ask them? Not likely. Instead they'll bang off a few shots and see what it looks like then they get the prints back.

    And the shame of it is that we are seeing these 'photographs' all over the net.. I have no hard evidence, but I'd hazard a guess that at least half of the images we see on "photo" websites are posted by photographers who have never in their lives intentionally composed an image. Sure, they've framed a lot of them, thousands perhaps (some seem to wear this like a badge of honor), but the composition was just what happened to be in front of the lens then the shutter was pressed. And after a few repairs in Photoshop, up the Internet they come.

    AND SO WE COME TO IT: the DILUTION OF EFFORT. Photographers have only so much time to take pictures. Jackson would spend days getting one negative. That's a great deal of effort packed into one image, but what extraordinary images he made! We spend fifteen seconds or less and what do we create? Cascades of snapshots! Piles of photographs that even our mothers won't hang on the wall. Yep, we are creating nothing more nor less than snapshots, created in an instant, and just as interesting as those Aunt Josephine shot when the family went to that Jersey beach last summer. Shooting fast is diluting our efforts, spreading one hour of our talent into dozens of worthless shots.

    There is only one cure: Go out with only one frame left, and try not to waste it. Spend half a day finding the one subject or scene with enough emotion, feeling, interest, or beauty to justify using all the film you have to shoot it. It isn't easy. The temptation to move on because something out there might be better is strong. But it must be ignored until you are certain that where you are has no possibilities. If you stopped, something there must have attracted you. Stay there until you know what it is. And when you know, start thinking like a photographer and figure out how best to capture that something on film. It isn't easy, and there will be many false starts. The images you get from this process are the ones you should be letting us see.

    And how do you tell the difference between a snapshot and an intentional photograph? That too is hard to do, and it's likely we'll all make some miscalls. Generally the intentional photographs will convey in some way the intent of the photographer. We'll have an idea what he was after, what he saw, or what meant something to him. And to us. Snapshots are usually nothing more than disconnected scenes from the life of the photographer, with no meaning to the viewer at all.

    WE PHOTOGRAPHERS, especially those amongst us who have some inkling what a good photograph is, must find the intentional images amongst our own portfolios and more importantly in the portfolios of young photographers. Look at them for a time, think about them, sort out our feelings about them, and then tell the young photographer as best we can what we really think of their work, and how we think it might be improved. It's okay to say what we think of the color, and it's okay to say what we think of the framing, or equipment and film choice. But what we really need to tell the photographer is what we felt about his or her image, what did it do for us, and what didn't it do. Viewing an image is a very personal thing. There isn't a standard to which all photographs are compared more reliable than your own meandering experience. Use it to tell the photographer how you felt about his work, or how you expected to feel but didn't. Then he can compare how he felt to how his photograph made you feel and decide what to do next.

Bruce Wilson, Provo Utah, July 4, 2002. (edited slightly 14 August, 2002)

^*Note added Feb 2005: Jackson Hole was known as Jackson's Hole long before the arrival of Hayden's survey group. The Hole, the lake, and the mountain are named after David E. Jackson, an early fur trapper who helped found the Rocky Mountain Fur COmpany link.

The Landscape Photographer

How to Photograph Landscapes Without Becoming a Landscape Photographer

An Essay on Amateur Landscape Photography.

We all know who they are. They are the Greats, the ones who write the coffee-table books, the prot�g�s of that one famous guy, the photographic family dynasties, the mountain climber with a camera. They are The Landscape Photographers.

This is how-to essay on landscape photography for the rest of us.

The Three Things You Must Never Do. Ever.

Let's start with the things you must never do. Ever. Even after you are a landscape photographer.

Never, ever, call yourself a Landscape Photographer. Even if you are good at it. 'Landscape' is not a subdivision of photography. All photographers know the skills and art of capturing something on film, and have the equipment to do so. That you point your camera at rocks and trees is really no different than pointing it at newlyweds.  No, Landscape Photography is nothing more than a business sales model, something you'll invoke when you want to attract the buyers who'll shell out for pictures of rocks and trees, or buyers who don't know the difference.

Calling yourself a landscape photographer does not improve your work; it brings extra baggage. One example: if you call yourself a landscape photographer the expectation is you'll produce the same sort of photographs we see in the books. The Greats work for years to get enough good stuff to make a book, and you'll be lucky to get just one that looks good after spending a week in the field. Call yourself an amateur and all the pressure is off, you don't need to produce works of art.

This brings up the second don't: don't seriously read coffee-table books. They are to photographers what fashion magazines are to teenage girls. They show the very best, the most extreme; photographs you can aspire to but to which you should never compare your own work, because your images will be uniquely yours. Coffee-table books don't tell you how and why the shot was made, and rarely where, and those are the things you need to know. You need to know the location, and time of day and year, not just which national park. You need to know how the shot was exposed, and more importantly, what the photographer was thinking. Coffee-table books are wonderful for inspiration, to get you out in the field, to remind you of the wondrous beauty you can find out there, but not good for your ego or your technique.  Nor for developing your own style.  Don't imitate a book.  Make something new. Make a photograph that only you can make.

Never think that equipment makes the image. Landscape photography makes the least demands on equipment. All you need is a steady camera and a few filters. We are not working against time, we don't need to catch the 'defining moment' (another sales model).  I was at Arches National Park a few years ago, shooting Delicate Arch at sunset (in October). With me were about 50 other photographers, all after that one great shot.  At two hours before the light was right they started shooting. The light was too white, the contrast too high, and they were going through rolls of film shooting the same thing on every frame (they were not moving positions to change the relative positions of the arch and the LaSal mountains behind). I sat where I could look at the sun setting, enjoying the sunset accompanied by the chorus of shutters, keeping track of the clouds on the horizon. I figured there was a ten-minute window of perfect light, so I waited until then and took two images (both almost identical), then sat down again to wait for the afterglow of the sunset while everyone else, out of film, packed it back to the parking lot. My point is this: in landscape work there are no situations so fleeting that you need an auto-anything camera. Since the photographers were not moving while shooting, image stabilization, mega-fast lenses, and 10fps drives were only in the way.

So don't worry about having the latest or the best equipment. Most images landscape photographers make don't need exacting sharpness and perfect autoexposure. In fact, some of the better images are made with a deliberate lack of sharpness. Maybe it invokes in the mind of the viewer those old classic images taken with two- or three-element lenses, where it's obvious the camera failed in some way, but without distracting from the landscape. And, as we'll see later, exposure is better done manually.

Don't use a format larger than your end product will require. Large format cameras are expensive to use and are heavy. Small format cameras are light, easily transported (you'll be doing a lot of that in the landscape) and film is cheap. I use a 4x5 inch camera only because I like to print 20x24 inch prints. If 35mm could print that big I'd use it all the time. I still like to grab it just to experience the fun of shooting small format.

There is one more big Don't we'll get to later.

The Philosophy of Landscape Photography

Making a landscape image requires one overriding goal: Put as many interesting things into a photograph as you can, but make sure the image is not cluttered. That's all it is. Make a list of all the interesting things you find in a location, and figure out how to include as many as you can into a single shot with the proviso that no shot ever looks chaotic; keep the image as simple and straightforward as you can. This is where painters have an advantage over the photographer: they add the scene to the painting, while we remove things from the scene. Weeds and disheveled undergrowth, power lines, contrails, and roads all get in the way, and part of cleaning up a scene is to find locations, lens length, and framing to keep those out of the picture.

Now, there is some compositional advice I could give you here, the rule of thirds (or the golden mean, whatever you want to call it), diagonals, juxtaposition, framing, and a lot of other things, but I won't. You can look that up elsewhere, and those who live by those rules can explain it better than I can. Here is my opinion: those rules are nothing more than a list of the things anyone will learn after a year in the field. I've found that making an image to fit the rules gives stilted or forced compositions.

And one other aspect of landscape philosophy: You can't make a photograph if you aren't there. The whole point of landscape is to capture the beautiful scenes you see when you are out in nature. You are the proxy for those who aren't there, so you need to be out in the field a lot. Get used to the idea of camping or touring, of getting up early in the morning and staying out late, of packing equipment in inclement weather, of standing around for hours waiting for the right light, or being bitten by bugs just when you are about to trip the shutter, or waiting in the rain for the clouds to break. Miserable, eh? Well, it's easy to put up with the misery if you are in a place you really enjoy. So find the places you like or love, and visit them. Again and again.

One of the hardest parts of landscape photography is making images that show your love of the land. This is where your artistic skill comes to bear. Just how you will show us your love of the land is what makes your images unique in all the world.

The Practice of Landscape Photography

Use a tripod

This is essential, not always for stabilizing your image, but to free your hand for other things you need to be doing after you've framed your shot.

It is not essential that you have the latest and lightest carbon fiber masterpiece. Get one of those if you will pack your equipment many miles. The tripod needs to hold you camera firmly, provide a way of repositioning the camera quickly and accurately, and prevent camera shake as winds buffet the camera and as the shutter trips. I prefer a heavy tripod for stability (good wood tripods from Reis or Berlebach are very nice), with a pan and tilt head (allows you to adjust one axis at a time), with as few leg joints as possible (my current Berlebach tripod, the Report model 3032, has only one extension per leg, quick to set up, quick to take down, but almost four feet long when collapsed). Others prefer ball heads that allow rapid adjustment of all three axes then lock down with one lever only.

Use a couple filters

The list of necessary filters is pretty short, and is summarized in my Saturation article:

A Polarizer is essential for controlling the lightness and richness of the sky and for controlling reflections off water. Polarizers come in two varieties; linear and circular. Circular polarizer's add a second 'unpolarizing' element (called a quarter-wave plate) to remove the polarization before it gets to the camera, and is needed for some auto focus cameras. Landscape photographers rarely need them. Linear polarizers work very well for us, as we will not be relying on our cameras to focus the scene. But be careful about overusing the polarizer: if you use one to darken the sky using a wide-angle lens, the sky will be darkened unevenly, ruining the shot.

A Neutral-density Half Graduated filter is used to control the brightness of a scene. Most interesting shots have areas of very different brightness: the sky may be 2 or 3 stops brighter than the land, and will appear washed-out if you expose for detail in the rocks. A NG grad  has half the filter darkened with gray, the other half clear. It's typically a rectangle that fits into a holder that will both rotate and allow the filter to slide up and down. That way you can place the transition on the horizon, then expose on the area of the scene that is not darkened. You'll need to carry several NG grads, both 2- and 3-stops, and with hard and soft transitions. But to use an ND grad you'll need the next item on the list to choose which filter to use. I use the Cokin P holder set, but I've cut the 4-filter holder down to hold only two filters so I can use it with a wide-angle lens.

Black & white shooters will need the colored contrast filters, mostly yellow, orange, and red.

Some carry skylight filters permanently attached to the lens, but it's only necessary at high altitudes where UV is a bit stronger and over exposes the blues.

Use a spot meter

Never rely on your camera to choose your exposure. You never really know what it's looking at and you never know what it's thinking. These are things you need to do if you want the shot to come out how you want it.

A spot meter lets you see the exposure information for specific locations in the scene. Of course, which specific locations is up to you to find, and choose what to do with them. It takes some practice, but here a few ground rules to get you started.

Get a gray card. Don't use it for metering, but to give you eyes a chance to see what middle gray looks like. If you can find some middle gray in the scene, meter that and use the reading for your exposure. What the meter is doing is telling you the exposure that will make whatever the meter saw when you pressed the reading button look  middle gray on film. Here are a few things that I've found are middle gray: sunlit foliage and grass, the cloudless sky 90 degrees from the sun, and typical gray rock with no reflections.

Buy what if you can't identify something that is middle gray? Adjust. When I shoot sunlit red cliffs I don't look for middle anymore, I look for the bright face. I've found that they are one stop brighter than middle. So if I get a reading of f/16 at 1/8 seconds on the bright rock, I know that it will be middle gray at that setting, and the entire picture too dark. So I will expose f/16 and 1/4 seconds. In other words, if I meter on something that is brighter than middle gray I open up as many stops as I need.

Figuring out how to read stops in a scene is tricky, and will require experience and good recordkeeping. If you get it wrong (if your image is too dark or too light), have enough information recorded so that when you encounter that situation again you won't make the same mistake twice. I made a database application for my PocketPC to handle my recordkeeping tasks. A notebook works just as well. Keep a list of exposure, location and subject info, a drawing of the scene with enough detail you can figure out which image it is, and notes on where you metered and what reading you got. A special problem that roll-film shooters have in keeping notes is to actually do it. It's very easy with an auto wind camera to blast a few frames when the muse prompts. But in doing that you miss the chance to learn from the exposure settings. It requires a lot of discipline, but the effort will really pay off later.

And know your film. You need to know the latitude of the film you are using, or how many stops of exposure there are between white and black on the film. Fujichrome Velvia, my preferred film, has about 5 stops of latitude, so if I expose for middle gray, I know that any object in the scene (clouds, typically) that is 2.5 stops brighter than that will probably be all white on the film, and anything 2.5 stops darker (shadows) will be black. If I find I face a scene with more latitude than my film will accommodate, I have to make some choices: will I let part of the scene go white or black, or can I use a ND grad to fix the problem? Or can I wait for the illumination to change to solve the problem (clouds moving to block direct sunlight, or wait for twilight)? It takes a spot meter to answer these questions.

Another aspect of exposure is how things look in different light. Green grass can have a very different appearance depending on the direction of the illumination. If the sun is directly behind you, grass and foliage will lighten slightly because of the direct reflections (see my saturation article on ways to control the reflections). If you shoot at a 45 degree angle from the line of the sun to your position you get a very nice glow to the grass because of the shadows that tend to form behind the blades. The same is true if you face the sun, or shoot 45 degrees away from the sun itself. Rock can also change it's color depending on the relative position of the sun and the camera. See my article on Fisher Towers for an extreme example. Both of these examples present problems in spot metering, and the solution depends more on how you want it to look than on there being one right answer. Again, try things, and keep notes. If your film is cheap, try bracketing exposures when you can't decide the best one. Shoot a second frame a half-stop over, and another a half-stop under your chosen settings. Then when you see the pictures you can see which you like best, and if you remember what you've learned, you can get the best exposure for you right away.

Use the right film

Your choice of film, or camera and post-processing settings for digital, can certainly influence, and maybe make or break, an image. All films have personalities: how they handle shadows and highlights, what exposure latitude they have, what colors are emphasized, how they handle the appearance of colors (dull them down, are accurate, or over saturate them), and you can use them to alter the feeling of an image. Landscape photography is very forgiving of colors. Typically we shoot at sunrise and sunset, when some colors are exaggerated. Exaggerating a bit more can sometimes help, sometimes hurt. Films can do that for you. Here are some of my thoughts on different films.

A caveat: exposure isn't too important with print film. It has inherently larger latitude than slide film (due to slide film needing one major processing step more, the reversal step, than print film). With this greater exposure, you can fix many exposure errors during printing. I recommend to anyone interested in landscape photography, or anyone interested in learning exposure, to use color slide film only, and then only use one emulsion. With slide film you see the same film that was in the camera, and you see far more clearly the results of your choices while shooting. It can be more disappointing at first because you will find there are a lot of things our brains do to correct the appearance of a scene that film will not do, especially with colors. For example, and shot made in the shadows will have an overall blue tint. The only light for the scene is what we call skylight, the diffuse blue light that comes from the blue sky. Our brains will automatically correct for skylight and we will see the colors that would be seen under white illumination. But film sees colors as they are. With print film the correction can be made (and will be made if a commercial lab prints your negatives), and you'll never see the effect that color correction filters, if you used any, might have had. So at first you might find a bad slide because of something you didn't correct, disappointing, I know, but far more instructive.

In the digital realm it will be about camera settings and post-processing. Some like to shoot in RAW mode, then process the images at home. This certainly gives the best control over the image, but it does require lots of time. I tend to work in .jpg mode, and use the camera settings to control the image (I like to increase the contrast and decrease the sharpening, and in the canyons and desert I increase the saturation). Controlling white balance can also impart a lot of feeling to digital images.

Use a vest

The more convenient it is to take a picture, the more likely you are to do so. If by packing your equipment you've made it inaccessible (in my case if I take it all down and store it in my ATV carrier) it's very easy to pass a scene rather than bother shooting it. Photo backpacks might be good for storing your equipment, but they aren't very good in the field. Use a good, cheap vest. I got mine five years ago at Cabelas (the safari vest, $50 five years ago, the same now) and it's perfect. Lots of pockets for lenses, film, filters and holders, meter, PDA or notebook, some food and water in the back pocket, safety equipment in the inside pockets, all handy to reach, quick to use. I keep all accessories in the vest, and when hiking, I keep my camera as set up as possible on the tripod  over my shoulder so I don't have much set-up time when I find a shot.

The point is: your equipment should not get in the way of taking a picture. Using your camera should be like walking or looking: your camera should be part of you, handy to use, and using it should be like using any other part of your body. When your equipment encumbers your work as a photographer, change it. This will require some practice, especially for a new meter, or when you move to large-format cameras and the film holders they use. Don't pack all your equipment in your bag as you walk a trail from viewpoint to viewpoint.

I suppose I should add a caution here: don't show off. I remember shooting at Bryce Point with my 4x5 on two occasions, with very different results. The first time I went I loved the attention my camera got, and because of it I couldn't concentrate on shooting and got nothing. The second time I tried my best to ignore the stares and concentrate on the scene. I got some great stuff that day (my site banner image came from that shoot), but I'm afraid I left a rather poor impression on the more sociable of my fellow photographers: I was concentrating so hard on shooting that I lost the ability to speak; when a small girl asked to look through my 'telescope' it took about 10 seconds to sort out my exposure calculation before I could answer her. In show-off mode I could have had more fun on the overlook, but I couldn't have gotten the shots I did. Save the showing off for the gallery wall. I always prefer to slide my white Canon L lenses underneath my vest than carry that ostentatious thing in the open. So that's another reason to use a vest.

Use good maps, an ephemeris, and a GPS

You need to know where you are. And where the good places to stand are. And where things are you haven't seen yet. And where the sun and moon will be. Having good maps, a good mapping GPS, and an ephemeris are essential.

I use several maps. At home and on my PDA I use the National Geographic TOPO! program. This map series used digitized USGS topo maps and digital elevation models to produce shaded topo maps of unequaled detail. Very good for planning and for double checking locations in the field. They are expensive. $100 per state, but worth it. Other electronic topo maps, like DeLorme's series, aren't as good. They don't have the details, and miss many trails on the USGS 7.5' (24,000:1) maps. I also use the topo map from Magellan (the company that makes my GPS). It has fewer details than DeLorme's electronic map, but it does exactly match what's on my GPS, and is good for presenting data downloaded from my GPS (tracks and waypoints).

I also use the Trails Illustrated/National Geographic trail maps. These are small-area maps printed on polyethylene, which makes them waterproof and very durable. Again, they don't have as much detail as the 7.5' USGS topos, but they have more hiking trail info.

Always use a GPS unit with topo maps. I use the older Magellan Map 330, and will for some time. I can upload topo map regions from the Magellan toto program (mentioned above). Again, the details are lacking, but fairly good for route-finding and locating your position. Have a look at both the Magellan and the Garmin websites for more info.

An ephemeris, a program that tells you where the sun and the moon are, along with rise and set times, is invaluable for landscape photographers. I try to plan trips just before the full moon. Although it means camping under a bright moon, it also means the moon will be somewhere near the horizon, useful for enhancing twilight shots and sunrises. I use a program on my PocketPC written by Jonathan Sachs, a photographer and the author of the first successful spreadsheet application on the PC (Lotus 1-2-3). He has some other useful (and free) photographic programs.

Be an artist

One of the biggest pitfalls a landscape photographer can fall into is to think he's a journalist simply documenting where he's been. This is the last big Don't: don't assume that a photograph of a beautiful scene will be beautiful. Travelogs are good, but it makes for some pretty bland scenics. Documentary photography is good, but it's interesting only to those who have a reason to be interested.

Instead, show us something new, something unique. Show us something that we wouldn't see if we were there, viewing from eye level, between midmorning and late afternoon.

Think about it from the general public's point of view. First, they haven't visited that location, and aren't likely to. And even if they have, they didn't explore the place and were there during the day, but they do carry away some memories of what they felt there that have improved over time. You are their ambassador to that place, but you are up against their expectation of what a beautiful place should look like, and the feelings that a beautiful place evoked in them. It's up to you to show it off bigger than life so it matches.

Here is where you should NOT try to duplicate exactly what you've seen by the pros. Find things in the landscape that you like, that make you smile. And get them. Please don't worry about making a clich�d shot. Heck, everything we've seen was clich�d fifty years ago, we've all been repeating since the discovery of color film. Buy do try not to make an exact copy of nature unless nature is so amazing that it alone can make the shot look good. Use filters, time exposures, early morning and late-evening shots to get colors and light visitors will not normally see. Wait out the rainstorm instead of ducking for cover like the rest of the tourists; show them what they missed. Use bright flashlights (not duraflame logs!) to illuminate the rock at night, or use a colored gel over you flash to paint color on some bland rocks. I guess here is where you want to see what others have done. Find those techniques that appeal to you, that made a scene really stand out, and practice them.

Be creative. As good as the early photographers were, they weren't all that creative. After you come to love a place, stay there until you don't feel pressure to produce shots (Galen Rowell referred to a rat gnawing your insides as the drive to shoot; stay there until the rat is asleep, then have fun shooting).

The non-professional landscape photographer has a huge advantage over the pro: no pressure. It is our privilege to have as much fun shooting the land as we like, and we'd do ourselves and those who view our work a disfavor to think we should or could do it like a pro.

So good luck out there, and please let us see what you create!

Bruce Wilson
31 May, 2004
Memorial Day

Bryce Canyon

The Park                                                                                This article should be printed in landscape orientation.

Bryce Canyon National Park is an amazing place to shoot.

The park itself is lies along the edge of a cliff, the pink cliffs, which are the upper-most step in Utah's Grand Staircase. The canyon is named after Ebenezer Bryce, an early Mormon settler who homesteaded at the mouth of the Canyon in what is now the town of Tropic. Brother Bryce cut a road into the canyon to harvest timber, a road used by other settlers in the area, so they called it Bryce's Road, and the canyon, Bryce's canyon. The settlers didn't seem to say much about the oddity of the canyon's appearance. Being a practical people, they were more concerned with immediate needs. The famous quote from Brother Bryce, "It's a hell of a place to lose a cow" is not just a joke, as you will see when you hike down into the canyon.

Tropic, Utah, pre-dawn, shot from Bryce Point.                                                    Bruce Wilson, 2002

Bryce Canyon National Park is located about 15 miles East of Pangwitch, Utah, which is the nearest city of any size. Many visitors like to stay at a motel or B&B in Pangwitch, or at one of the many motels or tourist cabins along the road to Bryce. The National Park also has an abundance of camping, divided into two campgrounds. The North campground has good access to Sunrise Point (a popular site because it is a high overlook toward the Easternmost side of the main amphitheater, good for early sunlit shots with a mostly head-on light) and to Sunset Point (the most popular tourist viewpoint). The Sunset campground is close to Sunset point, and it's the one where I always camp. In total there are 204 campsites available, and some additional backcountry camping for those who want to spend a day or two below the rim. Camping is $10 per night, first-come-first-served, and fill up by 5 pm on weekdays, by about 1 pm on weekends. The camper loops are separate from the tent loops, and there is water at the restrooms (showers are at the Visitors Center only). There are no reservations. To claim a spot, leave something on the table then go back to the fee station at the entrance to fill out the envelope and pay for the site. Keep one stub to mark your campsite, and put the other in the Occupied Campsite Board. Most of the park lies at 8000 feet altitude (2500 meters), so those not accustomed to altitude might have a bad night's sleep that first night, and will need to stop way more often to rest during exertions. Also, the air at Bryce is very dry, and you will lose a lot of water. Carry extra water, and drink a lot, especially if you are hiking at all. They recommend 2 quarts (2 liters) per hour of exertion, and in summer they aren't kidding. For up-to-date information, tune to 1590 KHz and 1610 KHz am for park and shuttle information as you drive in through Red Canyon.

The entrance fee is $20 for seven days, or you can use your National Parks Pass ($50 for one year) to get in. From mid-June to mid-August the Park runs a shuttle bus system to help alleviate the traffic congestion at the viewpoints, and is free once you've paid the entrance fee. If you are catching the shuttle in Ruby's Inn, a small tourist town just outside the Park, you'll need to go to the Ruby's Inn Business area where you will pay the entrance fee. They are great for day-visitors, but not at all useful for photographers whishing to get those sunrise and sunset shots; the shuttled only run during daylight hours. There are three routes (see map), one that starts outside the park (the Blue line, takes you just inside the park), the Red line (runs only around the main amphitheater), and the Green line, (runs to all the viewpoints South of the amphitheater). The shuttle system might be a good way to explore the Park the day you get there, then you can drive in after dinner for the first night's shoot. Of course, if you are camping in the park then drive right in and head for the campgrounds to claim your spot.

Geology (This section added February 2003)

The Pink Cliffs, the highest step (fifth) of the Grand Staircase, make up the Claron formation, and is composed of the white member overlaying the pink member. Both are limestone, not sandstone. The white member has been eroded away from the top of the Paunsaugunt plateau, but is still visible on the Southeast side of the amphitheater, at Bryce Point and the uppermost observation decks above Inspiration point. It is also largely intact near Fairview point.

Across the valley to the ENE from the amphitheater you can see the pink cliffs at Powell Point, at the southern end of the Escalante Mountains (also known as the Table Cliff Plateau to the geologists, and identified as part of the Aquarius Plateau on placards at the amphitheater). There is a fault in the valley (you can see the abrupt transition from pink to gray rock of the Straight Cliffs Formation that marks the Paunsaugunt Fault as you drive East on highway 12) along which the Paunsaugunt Plateau dropped about 2000 feet below the pink cliffs at Powell Point.

The low rolling hills (as they appear from the Plateau; they are actually quite tall and steep, they only lack cliffs) below the pink member are the Straight Cliffs formation. On a clear day you can see this same formation on the slopes of the long Kaiparowitz Plateau, which ends just before Navajo Mountain. There they are known as the Gray Cliffs, the forth of the five steps in the Grand Staircase. Below the Straight Cliffs Formation is the Tropic and Dakota formations (visible in road cuts and small valleys near Tropic, Utah, not from the Plateau), then the Entrada and Carmel Formations of red sandstone visible as the sides of the Paria River drainage seen looking East from Fairview point. By the way, "Paria" is pronounced "pah-REE-ah", not "par-EYE-ah". Looking South from Yovimpa viewpoint you can barely see some of the white Navajo Sandstone cliffs that make the White Cliffs, the third step of the Staircase.

Photography

There are three types of shots you get at Bryce: the close shot of individual or small groups of hoodoos (the name for those sandstone spires in the canyon), the medium shot of a small section of the canyon showing row after row of hoodoos, and the sweeping vista, including large parts of the canyon. But in this article I'll try to organize the possible shots you can get by time of day.

Pre-dawn

Some of the best vista shots are made before the sun comes up. Bryce Point is one of the best spots for the vistas. It stands quite high above the South end of the amphitheater, and there is a great lighting angle when the sun comes up. Predawn shots are very bluish, so a warming filter (an 81C is appropriate) is needed. Fortunately, due to the vast size of the amphitheater, you can easily get shots that do not include the sky. If you want sky in your shots, which isn't often due to the clear nature of the sky at that altitude, you'll need at least a three-stop hard-edged neutral-density graduated filter (I sometimes use a four-stop filter to darken the sky to match the shadows better just before sunrise). Be sure your filter can be adjusted up and down, as the horizon will need to be toward the top of the frame. If you forget your ND grad, improvise by blocking the sky from the shot using some black object, then revealing the sky during a long exposure. A yellow/blue polarizing filter can also be fun to work with at Bryce Point. The shot to the left was made on E100VS film , with the predawn light modified with a B/Y pol. oriented to impart extra yellow to the rock.

There is a wind problem at Bryce Point. If you stand near the fence, your camera will be buffeted by the rather strong updraft. If you move back three feet you won't feel much of this wind at all. Try to keep back a bit, but it's tricky if the point is crowded and tourists crowd in front of your camera. Fortunately most of them are waiting for the sun, and aren't interested in shooting in the best light for the canyon. Practice your best manners here, chat with other photographers and if you are shooting large format, leave the shutter open so any interested party can look at the focusing screen; they're dying to get a look, and it's a great way to introduce yourself to them. Also, and I really don't like saying this, you'll need to avoid the Wallies. They are the ones dressed funny and are looking at the crowds, not the scenery. Wallies are named after the Wally character in the movie Crocodile Dundee, who talk big but know little, who like to position themselves in prominent tourist locations and talk like they know the area. They never do (I once heard a Wally tell a poor German fellow who was too kind to walk away about the animals in the area, the bobcat, the 'coon, and the varmint; I think he meant the coyote, but he didn't describe it very well). They will be an endless distraction if they start talking to you. They inhabit the viewpoints mostly in the afternoon and evening. Well, you've been warned.

From some of the other viewpoints you will get different vistas, but they are all similar in coloration and shadow depth.

Dawn


Mid-June dawn from Bryce Point.                                                                   Bruce Wilson, 2002

The sun rises over the Aquarius plateau (actually, it comes up over the Escalante Mountains and Powell Point, but many consider this formation part of the plateau; I don't) about 10 minutes after the official sunrise time reported on my GPS or posted at the visitor center. The sunrise is actually a little better from April to May and in September when the sun come up through a notch between Powell Point and Boulder Mountain farther to the East, giving a little more color to the light and a little better angle for cameras at Bryce Point.

The dawn light is surprisingly harsh on these rocks. Shadows are at least three stops deep in the early minutes after sunrise, before the reflections have started filling in the shadows. With slide film it's a hard shot to get. Digital cameras shooters who can lower the contrast, and print film shooters will do okay with these shots.

I've found it's best to wait a few minutes for the sun to get high enough to shine onto the hoodoos brightly enough to have them reflect that red light on the shadowed-sides of their neighbors. Then you'll get shots with low enough contrast for slide film. By the way, the photograph on the front of the Bryce Canyon Official Map and Guide, the photo we all want to get, was shot about 30 minutes after sunrise from Bryce Point, and has the sky cropped out. You'll need a 2-stop hard-edged ND grad if you want the sky. While you are at Bryce Point, look across the canyon to Sunset Point (you'll know where it is because of all the tourists using flashes). Now imagine getting from there down to the bottom of the canyon. That's what you're about to do!

Mid Morning

There is only one place to be mid morning (about 1.5 hours after sunrise), and that is on the canyon trails. I think the best route is to do the Navajo Loop Trail. Start at Sunset Point (with your camera, tripod or monopod [monopods will give you support while climbing out], wide-angle lenses, b/y polarizer, regular polarizer, and soft-edge ND grads, and at least 2 quarts of water), and find the path leading down from the overlook itself. After one switchback you come to a "Y" in the trail. Take the one to the left (the north side of the loop; yes, those switchbacks on the south trail look inviting, but there are some on the north trail too). Keep your eyes up and look around for shots. They are all over the place, and the morning light is fabulous! As you move down, you'll get to the switchback section, and one of the tunnels.

It is in the mid-morning light, shooting up toward the sky at orange rock, that you'll discover why they invented the yellow/blue polarizing filter. It is a truly magical filter for shooting the rock, especially if you love the bold look and deep colors. The y/b pol set to make the sky bluer will do a nice job of balancing the exposure of the rocks and the sky, so you won't need to use any grad filters in the canyon for all but one shot. We'll get to that in a minute.

Soon you'll get to the switchbacks. I think the North trail switchbacks are the best to shoot from the top. This set isn't as long as the South side set, but it makes a better photograph as they aren't as wide and you can shoot them with a 28 or 24mm lens. The South set needs a 20mm or wider lens to get, and because of a fin in the way you don't see them all from the top.

As you continue around the trail you'll see the double bridge (kind of difficult to shoot), then you'll get to the big junction. You are now about halfway through the Navajo loop, and here you can take some of the other trails if you want to, but for most of us continuing the Navajo loop on the right-hand trail is the best option. The rest of the loop is uphill all the way, about 600 feet of uphill. Take a big drink of water, and head up toward Wall Street. Along this open part of the trail you can get some shots of the viewpoints on the rim of the canyon, and work in a few trees in the foreground.

As you get back in among the fins, a startling sight awaits you! You turn a corner, and you'll see:

It's a Douglas fir tree standing in the middle of a very narrow canyon. You are at the bottom end of Wall Street, and capturing that tree in one shot is why you brought the soft-edge ND grads. The upper part of the canyon is brightly lit, and the bottom part is in deep shadow. By using both an ND grad and a polarizing filter you can work out an exposure that might work. I suppose that there might be other times of the day, late afternoon, when the light will be better, but I've never hiked the canyon that late in the day (it gets hot down there!), so I don't know for sure.

Shots inside Wall Street itself are also tricky to get, as the walls are very dark, and the ends seem very brightly lit in comparison (although in reality all you see is reflected light at either end). So get what shots you can, but don't plan on hanging them on your wall.

Work your way up to the switchbacks. I counted them once, and turned to the right 14 times. The pitch of these switchbacks is about 45 degrees, so drink a lot of water, and rest every other switchback. If you see any overweight tourists who are struggling, offer to help carry some of their load if you still have a hand free (it's the Utah thing to do, if you don't want to look like a tourist yourself). You can get a few shots from the bottom, but light control will be needed (try using the ND grads and/or b/y pols). You'll want to get a shot of the switchbacks from the top, not because it's a good shot, but as a memorial to your effort getting up there!

Finish the trail back to the viewpoint (which is, I think, the hardest part of the climb). Rest. Rest some more. There aren't any good shots until the mid afternoon anyway. If you are unfamiliar with the southwest, be sure to join the walk with the ranger that starts at about 8:30 at Sunset Point. Very informative, and fun. Not a lot of time for setting up cameras and tripods, but if you are shooting freehand, then it's just great. They walk the Navajo loop in the opposite direction I've described, but the north trail shots are still there at 10 a.m. when you start climbing out.

Mid afternoon

The 18 mile road to the end of the park is nice. Here is where the shuttle busses really come in handy. Take the green line out of the visitors center or Sunset Point. You'll travel all the way to the South end of the park without stopping. Rainbow Point and Yovimpa Point have a look that is similar to the amphitheater, but different in a lot of ways. I like to have a big map at Yovimpa to try to make sense of all the scenery you can see there. It's a vast panorama, and on a clear day you can see a lot of the Grand Staircase (unfortunately from the upper side, so it isn't photogenic). There is a hiking trail starting at Rainbow, but it never gets very near the edge of the canyon for any good hoodoo shots. There are some nice panoramic vistas at the end of the bristlecone trail, which takes you out to the very end of the Paunsaugunt Plateau.
 

I like the shuttle system because it forces you to stay at each point on the way back until the next shuttle arrives, and you can get good shots at every point. It may take a couple hours to get all the way back to the visitors center, taking pictures the whole way.

By the way, if you don't want to do the amphitheater hike in the morning, the view points along the road offer a very different view in the morning and afternoon, and might be worth two trips out and back, one in the morning and another in the early afternoon. Telephoto lenses will help isolate the reflection-illuminated hoodoos in the morning.

Late afternoon

Late afternoon is a good time for close-up shots in the amphitheater. The trouble with evening shots is that the rim blocks the sun shining on the Silent City part of the amphitheater (just to the South of Sunset Point), so mid-afternoon is the best time. Shots can be had anywhere along the rim trail between Sunset Point and Inspiration Point. It's a half-mile trail, and worth the effort. You climb uphill from Sunset to Inspiration, so maybe the Inspiration to Sunset direction is best after doing the canyon hike in the morning. As long as the shuttles are running, you can get back to Inspiration easily enough. If you have an overcast day, thank your lucky stars, because the afternoon light is harsh. The overcast light really highlights the horizontal striations in the weathered hoodoos. Some trips to Bryce have resulted in useless afternoons because there were no clouds at all to help control the exposure, and other times I found a nice angle to get the hoodoos with a nice reflected backlight. Walk around and see what you can do with the hoodoos. Pay close attention to the reflected light, as you'll need it to moderate the sunlit/shadow contrast.

Evening

Again, I think Bryce Point is the best place to be for the evening shots. Thing is, there isn't any one good moment for a shot in the evening at Bryce. The sun sets to the far left of the amphitheater at Bryce Point, and there just isn't any better location, so you'll never get a shot of the actual sunset from anywhere at Bryce.

Instead concentrate on the wonderful side-lighting of the hoodoos that aren't in a shadow already, and on the great head-on lighting of Powell's Point. Again, big vistas work nicely before the sun goes down. You can also get some very nice telephoto shots from any amphitheater viewpoint during sunset.

After sunset a whole new type of shot opens up, once the hoodoos are in shadow. Again, make sure you have a warming filter to deal with the blue skylight, or set your digital camera on 'cloudy day' (this is especially important if you have any of the white bands in the shot, as they will look a particularly bright blue in the light of dusk, especially on Velvia). I think the best shots come from between Sunrise and Sunset points, where you get some fairly open views of the white ash layers in the pink cliffs. These white layers do some nice things in the blue light of twilight, so spend a little time on the rim trail and find some of these shots.

Nighttime

Due to the altitude, being far from big cities, and because Heaven smiles on Utah, the nighttime sky is glorious at Bryce. If you have the patience for long exposure nighttime shots, and the energy after a busy day, I think you could get some absolutely marvelous shots from down in the canyon with hoodoos in the foreground and the stars circling overhead. With a flashlight and a few colored gel filters you could paint the hoodoos with light for an even more colorful effect. After the busy days I've had there, I've never had the energy to get one of these shots. But I'd love to see the shots you get.

Winter (this section added February 2003)

There is a special appeal to the shots shot here in winter, especially shots in the amphitheater. The hoodoos in the bowl make for a very busy shot, and an element of order is often needed to tame the many areas of contrast (the vertical hoodoos, the horizontal striations in the stone, the overlapping forms). A horizontal layer of snow serves this function very nicely. By demarcating the horizontals, the verticals stand out as a compositional element. It's sort of the opposite effect of shooting with the very first light that highlights the vertical sides of the hoodoos.

Bryce, at 8000+ feet, gets cold in winter. Camping is still available in part of Loop A in the North campground (heated restrooms!) but is limited to about 15 sites, which will fill up on a holiday weekend. The visitor center will provide free snow shows (with credit card deposit to cover damage and loss) when the snow is a foot deep or more. If there isn't much snow the road to Rainbow Point will be open and plowed, but typical winters will have the road closed either at Fairview Point or just past the turn to Bryce and Inspiration Points. Paria Overlook is closed for cross country skiing. The Lodge is closed from November 1st, but many motels outside the park remain open year round.

During winter the full moon rises above Powell Point, a very nice shot from Inspiration one day before the full moon peaks.

In winter, the viewpoints to the south of the amphitheater usually look best in the mid morning, when the brightly-illuminated hoodoos can compete with the brightness of the snow.

Under the Rim

If you like backpacking, and have a camera system set up for backpacking, then the Under The Rim trail is for you. You need a backcountry permit from the visitor center (they are free), and you can get some nice shots of the pink cliffs from below (the ones most of us never see from on top of the plateau). Make sure you have a good trail map, like the National Geographic Trails Illustrated map of Bryce Canyon (map number 219).

Outside the Park, Red Canyon

There is one more place for shots, Red Canyon, the one you passed through on your way in from Pangwitch. I've found that mid-morning shots are good here, and that a polarizer can make these shots in the North side of the canyon very colorful indeed. Many shots can be had using a telephoto from the side of the highway, but there are some trails that get you right up to the canyon walls. A couple things to note about the red Canyon State Park, there is camping (37 sites), showers (more accessible than the ones in Bryce), and mountain bikes are allowed on the trails (good if you bike, bad if you don't like being surprised by bikes heading down).

Outside the Park, Kings Creek

Bryce sits on the very edge o the Paunsaugunt plateau. If you'd like to see what the middle looks like, you might want to stay at Kings Creek campground, in the Dixie National Forest. You access it along a dirt road off Highway 12, about 3 miles to the West of the Ruby's in turnoff. The campground it located next to Tropic reservoir, about 11 miles down the dirt road. It's a heavily wooded area, rather like the Sunset campground area in Bryce, only more so. I don't know of any spectacular shots from the area, but it is a nice campground, away from most of the tourists. The drive along the dirt road to the South is an interesting one, following the river valley back into the forested mountains.

Outside the Park: Losee and Canto Canyons (This section added February 2003)

Between Panqwitch and Red Canyon is a signed turnoff to the north indicating Losee and Canto Canyons (brown-colored signs in Utah rarely disappoint the curious photographer). Both canyons are part of the Red Canyon formation of limestone, a redder version of the pink cliffs. At the Losee Canyon parking area (about 2 miles in (vault toilet available, no tables, no camping) is a trailhead to various locations. The most enjoyable of the trails is the Arches trail, which exits the area to the north up the wash. After an easy 1/10th mile, you find the 1/2 mile loop. In the loop you will climb about 500 feet, but the trail is well maintained, and is of moderate difficulty. I suggest taking the right-hand fork to go up, as it will present the arches most dramatically. The arches aren't very big, but they are interesting and quite photogenic (you will need some careful composition to minimize the appearance of the trail in the shot, and of the apparently immovable sawed log just off the trail that rather spoils a more balanced composition that includes some evergreen groundcover). Just past the arches section is a slope by which you can reach the upper cliffs, with marvelous viewpoints of the upper reaches of Losee canyon (in the afternoon) or intimate vistas of the tiny amphitheater to the northwest. If you do venture off trail, please watch out for the small (one foot) and sometimes very tiny (1/4 inch) trees just getting a start on life. Also look for a few bridges that form underneath the hard gray limestone layer. There is a very prominent conglomerate band in the pink limestone, mirroring very nicely the conglomerate-filled banks of the wash below.

Canto Canyon, another mile along the road (note that the road crosses several washes, and should not be attempted during or just after a rainstorm) is a flat hike that takes you back into a more intimate and verdant version of the Bryce Canyon. Hoodoos line the walls of the canyon after a half mile. If they day isn't too hot, just walk up the wash itself.

Past Canto Canyon, about 1/2 mile where the road forks, is an area loaded with jasper. Sometime in the past debris from an ancient cave was washed into the area. The jasper is semitransparent, and often varicolored from golden brown to rose pink to deep red. Kids might really enjoy looking for rocks here, if you don't mind toting them around.

Other resources

I've found that one book really stands out if you are shooting in Southern Utah. It's called Photographing the Southwest, Volume 1, by Laurent Mertres. It's published by PhotoTripUSA. A companion Volume 2 covers Northern Arizona and New Mexico.

If you are the type who likes to get down into the canyon, especially if you like climbing, then there is a web site just for you: Tom's Utah Canyoneering Guide. A marvelous site about locating and hiking/climbing some of Utah's most scenic canyons. No information on Bryce here, but sections on Zion, Grand Staircase-Escalante, San Rafael Swell, Arches/Moab, etc.

The expanded Bryce Canyon National Park What-to-do Page

Shuttle map

Bryce Canyon History

Get your own National Parks Pass

Also note that Bryce is open through the winter, and there are many photographic opportunities to be had with the snow around the hoodoos. I've never visited Bryce in winter, but the North campground is open all year, and with snowshoes and enough time you should be able to shoot all around the rim trail, and even hike down into the canyon if you watch out for ice.

Fisher Towers

Photography at Fisher Towers, Utah                     This article should be printed in landscape orientation.

Just to the North of Moab, Utah, lies one of the countries best scenic byways. It's known as Utah State Highway 128, running from Moab to near the uranium ghost town of Cisco. What makes this road unique is that it is the only highway to run next to the Colorado river, down inside the canyon. For those who don't want to hike down into the Grand Canyon to see what those cliffs look like from the bottom, driving 128 is the next best thing. Not as deep but still spectacular.

About halfway along 128 you'll see a sign to Fisher Towers. To the East you'll see a few low fins standing at the end of a vast butte. From the highway they don't look very interesting or even very photogenic. Take the road out there anyway. The magnificence of the Towers doesn't become fully apparent until you walk among them. The Towers lie at the end of a 2.5 miles rough but passable dirt road (the road does cross one wash, so don't try the road just after a big rainstorm).  There is a small 5-site BLM campground at the end of the road ($10 per night, no reservations, vault toilet, no water) which is usually full during tourist-season weekends (you can find a spot if you get there by noon on Friday; weekdays you can find a spot easily). During the tolerably-cool Spring months, it is not uncommon to find the campground empty during the week, half-full during the weekend. Watch out for school holidays, which find the camp filled with college students from Colorado who come to climb the rocks. There is ample parking for day visitors (free). See the maps at the bottom of this page. If you can't find an open spot at the camp, look for a spot at one of the many BLM campgrounds near the Colorado River. If you don't want to camp, you'll need to stay at a hotel or motel in Moab, about a 40 minute drive. Fortunately, there isn't much here in the way of morning shots, so the driving delay isn't too painful.

The Towers sit at the Southern edge of an unnamed mesa (well, it looks like a mesa, but really isn't--no cliffs on the eastern side; Fisher Mesa is located across the valley to the South). They are the last remnants of the same erosion process that created Bryce Canyon, and they might even be called hoodoos if they weren't so isolated and huge. The first thing you will notice is the brick-red color of the rocks. It's actually a soft sandstone (mudstone of the Cutler formation, capped by the harder Moenkopi formation). As you walk the trail, you'll find a lot of evidence of the speed of erosion: vertical mudstone walls, flowstone, and no desert varnish anywhere. Many scenes from the motion picture City Slickers II were shot at Fisher Towers.

There are five main towers in the group, divided into three subgroups. (1) The Ancient Art/Corkscrew and Kingfisher (on the uphill side) group, (2) The Cottontail & Echo (on the uphill side) group, and (3) Titan.

From the right-hand edge is Titan & Cottontail, the small
thin Corkscrew peak below, and then Echo. Kingfisher stands
the tallest here. Due to the perspective, the dominant Titan
 looks no taller than the lesser towers. All photos are clickable.
And yes, I know the colors on this are terrible.

You will find some good shots around the camping/parking area, especially of climbers practicing near camp for the longer routes on the towers themselves, or of the mesa at sunset. But all the best shots are out on the trail.

A climber practicing technique on a small rock
near camp. Kingfisher Tower in the background/

A morning shot from just down the trail, using the blue
skylight and reddish rock to create a unique color effect.
The rock is about 1/2 to 2/3 stop underexposed to enrich color.

The Tower Trail, 2.1 miles long, 600 ft
total elevation gain, +1000 ft & -400 ft net.

The tower trail is well groomed and considered moderately strenuous. Most of the trail isn't bad at all, but there are a couple very steep switchback sections near the start that will really strain even the most fit of us carrying photographic equipment. Just take your time on those sections, and make sure you bring some water along. Just be satisfied that it will all be the easier on the trip back. Unburdened it takes about 60 - 90 minutes moving directly out to the end of the trail, which is just over two miles long. If you carry a camera, however, you'll end up taking much longer as you grab shots all the way there (and even more shots coming back).

Just after the trail passes the back side of Cottontail, as it turns out to its final destination, there is a wash that can be difficult to cross. The trail construction team has (or rather had) placed a heavy metal ladder to assist hikers through the wash, but the spring rains of 2002 washed it so far down the canyon (as it does every year) that this year it wasn't found. Officially this year the trail closes at the wash, but if you are nimble and have a partner to assist with the gear it can be crossed. Fortunately, most of the best shots are found before this wash. [Note: this information is based on my last visit in late June, 2002. Things might have changed since.]

I need to explain something about the rock here, something you've probably noticed in the first few shots I've used on this page. The sandstone is filled with quartzite with high reflectivity. If the light is well-aligned with the viewer, it has a remarkable ability to reflect the incident light, and will glow a brilliant orange in the low-angle light of sunset. But if the light is perpendicular to the viewer, the rock darkens and turns the brick-red you see in the second and third shots. And due to the high color of the rock, any green vegetation, especially the old juniper trees, takes on an almost neon appearance once your eyes have become accustomed to the red color (green being approximately the compliment of the red color of the rock). It's a very eye-catching effect to observe, but film, lacking the color acclimatization ability of the eye, will not capture this effect. Digital might if you set the white balance using the rock, rendering the rock as gray and the foliage that neon green. Depending on the direction of light and the nature of your color film, the rock can look brick red, through pink, to brilliant orange.

Group Shots

There are several sorts of shots out on the trail. The group shots, where you capture more than one of the towers, is difficult to shoot from the trail itself, due to the size of the towers and the proximity of the trail (not even fisheye lenses will get the towers from top to bottom when the trail runs right along the base of the tower). Fortunately there are several moraines that provide excellent vantages of the tower groups. They are noted on the map below in red.

Caviat: Please, please, please remember that if you venture off trail, you are responsible for both your own safety and the safety of the life your are stepping on. The most fundamental form of life in the desert southwest is called cryptobiotic soil. It is soil stabilized by a symbiotic colony of lichen (which is itself composed of fungus and algae) and bacteria. "Crypto", as it's known, is extraordinarily fragile, and one step will kill it for a decade. But it is the only thing that stabilizes and enriches the soil enough to allow anything else to grow, and must be preserved. If you do venture off trail, make very sure you can recognize patches of crytpo and make every effort to avoid treading on it. The safest plan: walk only on hard rock. Crypto is generally seen an a bumpy, dark patch of soil, but early formations of crypto lack the darker color of the old patches. Drive the Castle Valley Road (you passed the turnoff on the way from Moab) and you'll see lots of it as you enter the section of rolling hills before the first big turn to the South.

Note the compression artifacts you can encounter in
rendering your images for the web: .jps's don't like
red/blue contrast, and many sunset shots will have a lot.
Shot from position #3. Cottontail and Titan.

The red #1 in the trail map I've provided (bottom of page) is the easiest to reach, and the #2 & #3 spots are the hardest. Unfortunately, the #3 spot offers the best view and angle on the towers, and it's worth the effort to get out there. The #2 spot is good if you want foreground detail. If you don't want to walk all the way out to the #2 I've indicated, go out on the bench the branches off it, and there are plenty of good locations as you walk down the moraine. Start about 1.5 hours before sunset to be in position with plenty of time. Don't waste film! There are a lot of good shots to be had in the 30 minutes that follow the sunset itself, so remain out there until it begins to get too dark to shoot. One nice sunset effect is the shadow of Dome Mesa (to the West) moving up the towers until the tall spire of Titan is the last to hold the sun; it's a nice way to show its height without hiking to the end of the trail. Remember to apply film recipricosity corrections in the low light. It's also good to have something like a Petzel LED headlamp to help get you back to camp in the low light.

One thing you'll need to watch for in the wide shots is condensation trails from jet liners passing overhead. The Fisher Towers area sits directly under a very busy high-altitude jetway (From Grand Junction CO to Milford UT; carries DEN to SFO traffic), and if the sky has those thin high-altitude clouds that make the sky so interesting, it will hold onto the contrails too.

As you hike the trail, you will cross a lot of slickrock. Watch for the small piles of rocks, cairns, which mark the trail.

Exposure: For daytime shots putting the rocks on zone 5 or 4.5 (0 or -1.2 stop EV) will get a nice rendering of the rock color and sky. The green foliage of the junipers is about 1/2 stop under the brightness of the rock, so it comes out pretty well in the EV 0 shots. One problem with this location is in the late evening the light is so flat that much of the relief detail is lost, leaving the towers looking rather blank (see the first image on the page, where I put the rock on Zone 6 and washed out much of the detail that was visible--the clouds were about 1.5 stops under the rock, and I thought I could get away with it). Sometimes this shot works better if you can find a position that is not in direct line of the sunset, maybe a 20-30 degree angle. Normally I expose sunlit red-rock in zone 6 (one stop overexposed from a meter reading on well-lit rock). But late in the day, in the flat light of sunset, putting the rock right on zone 5 is best to bring out both the rich color and relief detail.

A shot of the Corkscrew and Cottontail, with Titan peeking out from
behind, from just off the trail (heading toward position 2). Note
the scale of the several hikers wearing white.

From near position #3, where Titan is easily separated
from the other towers. Old, weathered junipers are easy
to find off the trail, and make good foreground elements.

You might also pay particular attention to those days of the month when the moon is approaching full (waxing). That's when the moon comes up far enough to include in your tower sunset shots. The waning moon comes up well after the light is gone.

The other good group shot is from the far terminus of the trail. It's a grand view out there, one that works best in the morning, the earlier the better. Unfortunately, due to the remoteness of the location, sunrise shots from this location are difficult to get. The trail is about 1.5 to 2.5 hours long (laden), which means that to be at the trail end at sunrise (6 a.m. in summer) means departing between 3 and 4 a.m. I've never done it, so I don't know what sort of shadows the very tall Titan throws on the others at first light. Judging by the geometry of the towers indicated on the topo map, I'd guess that the sunrise shot is doable in winter, but not in summer when the sun rises at a high latitude. If you are keen to get up that early, why not try for some star trail shots with a tower silhouette in the foreground?

    
Shots of the tower group from near the end of the trail, at about 10 a.m.
On the left is Cottontail and several other towers. The leftmost image
shows Cottontail and Echo Towers, with Kingfisher behind. The image on
the right shows the predominance of Titan in relation to the rest of the towers.

A wide shot from the far end of the trail. Note the position of
the towers in relation to the mesa. To the left you can see the
parking lot, and the gentle curves of the Colorado river as it
enters Professor Valley. A long lens can do some good things here.

Other interesting groups from out on the trail are the nearby Castle Rock (a.k.a. Castleton Tower) and the Rectory, Priest and Nuns. Castle Rock makes some good shots on its own, and the trail out is easily accessed from the Castle Valley road (look for a very dusty parking and camping area with a view of the tower down a small canyon).

Castle Rock, The Rectory, and Priest and Nuns.
Fisher Mesa is in the foreground when shot from the trail end.

From the end of the trail there are also some good vistas of the Eastern side of the towers area, the one that is accessible only with much difficulty (there is no trail beyond the tower trail, but if you climb or scramble I think you can get out there; you're on your own with little chance of rescue should you become immobile).

The inaccessible area beyond the Towers.

Details from Out on the Trail

When you are hiking the trail itself, abandon hope for many tower group shots. The trail winds among the towers, sometimes at the very base of the vertical walls, and trying to get the entire tower from its base is not possible. I've found many detail shots, though. The junipers of the area are all quite old (thanks to there not being a fire through the area in anyone's recollection), and in age they have gained personality. They make excellent foreground objects, as do the weathered rock formations.

Juniper and Cottontail, late afternoon.

It is in the detail shots that you can give viewers of your photographs some idea of the magnitude of this place. Having someone on the trail helps establish scale.

The trail along the Eastern base of Cottontail.
Click on the image and find the hiker.
About 11 a.m. Notice the tall towers are
still casting shadows well into the day.

It is in the detail shots that you can capture one of the most amazing aspects of Fisher Towers: the other-worldly feel of the place. There is literally no other place on earth like this. The rocks are very striated (layered), the dirt is either orange or brick-red, the green, as I said earlier, stands out brightly. The combination has a magical quality, and when you are surrounded by the enormous towers too, it really is an amazing experience, one that is difficult to capture on film.

                  

    

Other shots in the morning you might want to try are the backlit shots, especially if there is much haze in the air.

One other shot of the Towers you might want to try is a location on the Colorado river itself, looking South down the valley using a long lens. The spot is just past the bend at the top of the map below. It's a good sunset shot.

Climbers

You can also get a lot of good shots of the rock climbers that haunt the rocks. Don't worry, if you want to shoot a tower and a climber is there you'll never see him. But there is one route, the "Stolen Chimney" route up the edge of Ancient Art, that is considered one of the ten best climbing routes in the US. Weekends will always find at least one group in the route, and frequently there will be several groups waiting. Shooting from below with a long lens, from the opposite slope, and even from the parking lot will yield some interesting shots. Things to watch for: the "sidewalk", the horizontal section near the corkscrew and diving board which narrows to 8 inches wide with 400 foot drop-offs, is something of a test of fear to walk--not crawl--this section. Also, watch how they get onto the diving board. The classic method is to belly flop onto the end (they call it 'mantling'), with some risk of falling over the side, so many will just climb up over the base.

Climber topping out on Echo (next to
Cottontail), shot from the campground
with a 200mm lens and 2x extender.

Nearing the Corkscrew, the top of the "Stolen Chimney" route.
The horizontal protrusion is called the Diving Board.

Shot from the parking lot, a climber nears the top of the Corkscrew.

I hope this article gives you an idea of the beauty, magnificence, and hugeness of the Fisher Towers area. Have fun shooting there!

These maps are clickable:

 

Links

Climbing Kingfisher, Ancient Art, Titan,

Pictures by Utah Pictures, Utah Canyon Country

Burr Trail

Photography on the Burr Trail, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Capitol Reef National Park, Utah                                                               This article should be printed in landscape orientation. It may be possible to spend and entire season photographing on the Burr Trail and still see only a fraction of what is there to see. I've considered taking the job of campground host at the Deer Creek campground just to find out. The Burr Trail, also known as the Boulder to Bullfrog Road, is a (mostly) paved road going from Boulder, Utah, to the middle of Capitol Reef National Park, then on south to Bullfrog marina on the shores of Lake Powell. It's about 60 miles long, and runs through some of the most desolate and beautiful land in the United States. History of the Burr Trail The Trail, named back in the 1880's when John Atlantic Burr used it to move cattle through the area, runs through the northernmost part of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The Monument is the largest in the US, and is divided into sections. At the North is the Circle Cliffs area, where the Burr Trail is found. The southern end of the Circle Cliffs is formed by the Big Brown Bench (among other benches and mesas) that separate it from the Canyons of the Escalante area. The canyons formed by the Escalante river and its tributaries contain some of the more interesting and accessible (as well as some of the most inaccessible) narrows and slot canyons in Utah, places like the Narrows of the Dry Fork of the Coyote, Spooky, Peek-a-boo, and Zebra slots. Here also is found the Hole-in-the-Rock road paralleling the Fifty-mile Bench, as well as the spectacular (though remote) canyons of the Escalante River. Bordering the southern end of the Canyons area is the Fifty Mile Mountain (which is itself only the northeastern edge of the magnificent Kaiparowitz plateau) that separates the Canyons from the Grand Staircase region. In this article I will concentrate on the photographic opportunities along the Burr Trail itself, with only passing reference to the more popular photographic locations of nearby Boulder Mountain, Utah highway 12, and the Hole-in-the-rock road. Above I mentioned that the Burr Trail was paved. It wasn't always that way. In the late 70's and early 80's there was quite a raging controversy concerning who, if anybody, should pave the then dirt road. Garfield county wanted to pave the trail to increase tourism in the area, and they were joined by the national park service. They were, of course, opposed by environmental groups, hoping to keep the area as pristine (well, uncontaminated by tourists and hunters) as possible. The locals, hunters, RVers and miners wanted it paved, and for mostly one reason: the Burr Trail mud. Just out of the north end of Long Canyon there is a layer of orange clay, a layer that, when wet, becomes the stickiest and slipperiest natural substance known. I'm told by an old acquaintance who as a youth herded cattle through the area that not even shod horses could stand on the wet clay. In my youth our family drove over the Burr Trail after a storm, and the mud we picked up that day was still under the wheel wells and on the brake pedal 15 years later when we junked the car. I tell you this to reinforce the idea that besides the obvious dangers of flash floods in the canyons and washes, the unapproachable danger of driving the unpaved roads during or after a rainstorm (quicksand abounds in the wash crossings, which remain impassable until they dry), you may be forced to deal with the mud the moment you step off the pavement. Well, the NPS switched sides in the debate when they realized that if Garfield county paved the road they would lose all right of way to the road, and after a lengthy court case, Garfield was given the right of way and they promptly paved the road in the early 90's. And it's been a godsend to those of us who desire access in inclement weather without endangering our lives. The road is paved through the Monument, but the paving ends at the border to Capitol Reef (I presume the NPS, having committed itself to opposing the paving, has never felt its way clear to paving its own roads). So even in inclement weather it is still possible to get a lot of very nice scenic views from the road itself, enough to occupy days of effort. The Monument itself was created in 1996 by Clinton. Just a note: don't ask any locals about it if you like Clinton. Utahans generally are still pissed at him when he put 1.7 million acres of our state permanently under federal control, and didn't even bother to set foot in Utah when doing it (he made the announcement from the Grand Canyon). Accommodations in Boulder There are a couple motels in Boulder. Also a couple gas stations. And a couple restaurants. And a couple shops. And a couple of B*B's. Two of everything, in fact. Also in Boulder is the Anasazi State Park, with interesting information on the previous inhabitants of the area. The headquarters of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is in Escalante to the south, but they maintain an information desk at Anasazi State Park. Stop there and get their map and enquire about local conditions, weather, etc, before you head down the Trail. There is one campground in all of the Monument. It is about seven miles from Boulder, located at the Calf Creek crossing. There are seven camping areas there (six during the tourist season, when one spot is occupied by the campground host), no reservations. Each campsite has a table, a fire grill, and a marker post. There is a vault toilet, but no water (other than Calf Creek itself, but that is laden with Giardia, so don't think of drinking untreated water; the creek runs year round). A word of advice on choosing campsites: if it is hot, avoid the side near the ledges. The afternoon sun turns those campsites into ovens. See the links section below for lists of accommodations in Boulder. The Burr Trail: Boulder to Long Canyon So let's begin our little tour of the Burr Trail. At a 90 degree bend in SR-12 is the turnoff to the Burr Trail. At the corner you'll see two things of interest: an old and somewhat photogenic gas station, and the dumpsters. The gas station, and the old steers skull, can be photographed in an obvious manner. The dumpsters, however, are very important. that's where all your trash should go. I love the Burr Trail, and hate to see it messed up with garbage. I make it a point to pick up all the trash I see when I'm hiking in the area, and I hope you will too. Normally I make it a point to pick up all the trash I can carry as I hike back to the car, but on the Trail I pick it up wherever I find it, even it if means carrying a couple muddy beer bottles for miles in a vest pocket. As you start down the road you'll see a couple of fields, one green and strewn with boulders, the other a pretty little horse pasture. Both make interesting shots in the morning or evening. Soon you'll see a small hill composed of checker boarded Navajo sandstone. Pass on by, there are much better examples coming up. As you move along the trail in a SE direction you'll pass Sugarloaf, then parallel Durffey Mesa. Both are large hills composed of that wonderful checker board white sandstone, but now you'll find details like black boulders (left over from the explosion 50 million years ago that took the top off the volcano and left us with Boulder Mountain), and trees growing out of the cracks. Early to mid morning provides good sidelight to bring out the patterns in the rock. Hike around a bit to find unique views. About 6 miles from Boulder look for petrified sand dunes. Where the road is cut through you'll see evidence for cross layering, a sign of petrified dunes, where one layer abuts another at an angle. About 6.5 miles down the trail you'll cross over Calf Creek, and find the Calf Creek campground. Just south of the road, along Calf Creek, there is a shallow spot in the river, excellent for letting the kids romp in the water, or for washing a couple days of Circle Cliffs dust off if you are camping. You can also find some shots of the relative oasis of green that the river sustains in this desert. The Burr Trail: Long Canyon Long Canyon is for me the highpoint of the Burr Trail. It starts about 10 miles out of Boulder, and is seven miles long. The canyon cuts diagonally through the Wingate formation that make up the Circle Cliffs, running in a northeast direction, which, as you will see later, is the key to photography here. just before you enter the canyon you'll pass some turnouts with perfect overlooks of the mouth of Long Canyon, and to the west, the Gulch. Rattlesnake Bench separates them. Continue down the road toward the switchback, but look for a signed road to the west. A short trail leads to a view of an Anasazi cliff dwelling up high, that unfortunately isn't very photogenic, being high up and in the shadows most of the year. Just past the horseshoe bend in the road you'll see the first signs of 'swiss cheese', the flood-eroded holes in the canyon walls. It is most prevalent at the mouth of the canyon, but can be seen all through the canyon, usually at the higher elevations on the walls. There are a couple spots where a quick hike will take you right up to the wall.   I suppose this is as good a time as any to talk about my second pet peeve of desert life: crypto biotic soils, or crypto. Soil in this part of Utah has a rather tenuous grasp on the life, mostly because of the constantly shifting nature of the loose sand. Only one thing can hold it down: crypto biotic soil. Crypto is a symbiotic colony of lichen (fungus and algae) and bacteria that manage to produce enough waste to both fertilize and cement the sand enough for grasses to start growing. It is absolutely essential to life in the desert, and is terribly fragile. One step will kill it for years. You will recognize it as bumpy, dark patches of sand. If you see any, please, please avoid stepping on it! If you do venture off the road, use established trails as much as you can, or stick to washes, hopping from rock to rock, or detouring. This landscape is worth a five minute detour to avoid walking over 10 feet of crypto. Long Canyon is best shot from mid morning to the early afternoon. After sunrise the sun illuminates the northwest wall, which reflects its orange light onto the southeast wall. It is this colored, diffuse light that imparts to the canyon it's unique photographic possibilities. This light can impart a surreal appearance on the ordinary, and will produce some marvelously saturated images. Since the canyon walls are so high (600 feet) and close to the road, even wide-angle lenses are appropriate, with very little inclusion of the much brighter sky. If you shoot the more saturated slide films like Velvia or E100VS, overexposing an extra half stop will help desaturate some of the abundant color. You will find literally hundreds of opportunities to use your normal and short telephoto lenses as well. I've found the best way to shoot the canyon is on foot. Typically I will shoot the predawn and sunrise out by the Circle Cliffs (see below), then after a picnic breakfast, spend the rest of the morning driving very slowly or walking down the canyon. You can take (almost) all the time you want, as the light remains pretty constant from about 8 a.m. to at least 1 p.m. If you are with someone, have the drop you off at the top of the canyon with a some extra film, and have the drive a mile down to wait. When you get to the car, get more film and walk another mile. And don't feel shy about hiking into some of the side cantons. None of them are very far in, but do have a different view of the canyon. A few things to look for as you mosey along: water-carved rock. The canyon was carved by erosion, and the process left many uniquely carves and hollowed-out rocks. Also look for hoodoos and the occasional balanced rock toward the top of the canyon.   During the Fall you can find many examples of dead weeks standing next to rocks and other features. Most mornings the air in the canyon is dead calm, so deep focus (long exposure) still-life and scenic shots will work nicely. As you move through the canyon you will see many turnouts. With one exception, they are all there because of photographers (the one exception is a location where climbers debark for the walls). It's a good policy, if you have the time, to stop at all turnouts and find the things nearby that caused others to stop. And please remember to pick up any trash you find, and watch out for the crypto higher up the slopes. About halfway down the canyon there is a short narrows that often yield good shots from noon to mid afternoon. Look for a well-used turnout near some very big trees to the northwest. It's a normally dry narrows (flat bottom, unlike the 'V' bottom of a slot) that's only about 100 feet deep. At the far end of the narrows is a perennial pool of water. The Burr Trail: Western Circle Cliffs At the top of Long Canyon there is a cattle guard (the BLM, which administers the Monument, issues cattle grazing permits during the spring and summer months) and the Long Canyon overlook. paradoxically, the overlook has a nice view of the flats, but not the canyon. Here you can get top-down shots of the two prominent bands of clay that demark the west rim or the Circle Cliffs: the red clay layer above the blue Bentonite layer (just east of Capitol Reef are the Bentonite Hills, better known as The Blues, where this layer is the dominant feature of the terrain). With a polarizing filter you can bring out the colors a bit.   This area is also one of the best locations for pre-dawn and dawn shots. The early illumination on the Circle Cliffs here is fun to work with, and by moving around to find interesting foreground features you can compose some very classic shots with the cliffs in the background. Shots of the cliffs in the very early hours have a nice balance between the cliffs and the sky illumination, but closer to sunrise a one or two-stop soft-edge ND grad will help control the brightening sky. Shots can be had at locations next to the road all the way down the hill, so do explore. There must be other locations similar to the end of Long Canyon for shooting the cliffs at sunrise, but none of them are nearly as easy to access. Driving the dirt roads in the area at night is discouraged unless you are very familiar with them. The Burr Trail: The Flats The area enclosed by the Circle Cliffs doesn't have a single name. Generally called "The Flats", it is composed of an area called The Flats to the north of the road, White Canyon Flat toward the east where the road passes through, and White Canyon in the middle. To the south is Horse Canyon, the Wolverine Petrified Wood area, and Death Hollow, all in close proximity. The flat is a fairly photogenic Upper Sonoran environment, cut with many eroded drainages and filled with juniper and pinion pine trees (which I grew up collectively calling 'cedars'). The north, south, east, and west sections of the flats all have their own 'feel', and it's the eastern par I like to photograph best. The area has many ungraded dirt roads (put in by uranium miners a long time ago, used mostly for RV and hunting now) that provide access to the more remote parts of the flats and a few of the hilltops, but a 4WD vehicle is needed to traverse the roads. I don't know of any really grand views of the flats as a whole, as there do not seem to be any trails that lead to the top of the Circle Cliffs. With a long lens you can get an oblique angle on the flats from the Homestead viewpoint on Boulder mountain, but you will content with haze from that distance. Instead I like to find those fun, interesting little pristine still life's that are most easily found on the less-frequented eastern side of the flats. Here is where the crypto grows in abundance, so again, be very careful of where you step. One interesting spot I found on my last visit is the car wreck. Look for a lone burned tree. A car wrecked there in the past (sorry, I haven't discovered the details) and burned. There I found molten aluminum, fused glass, assorted bits that fall off cars when they are destroyed. Not photogenic, just interesting. The Wolverine Canyon area, and Death Hollow Probably the most interesting location in the flats is to the south, the Wolverine Petrified Wood area. You access it via a mostly graded dirt road. Looked for the signed turnoff to the south toward Wolverine and Horse canyon. The road is in very good shape until you reach the wash, where the quality deteriorated rapidly. It is passable by passenger car in dry conditions, but impassable by anything when wet. Near the washes are some dust bowls in the road that can unnerve all but the most steady drivers, which are not dangerous (besides coating everything with thick layers of dust). At the southern most end of the road is a large parking area and a gate to access the petrified wood area. Bring water, as you will need to hike a bit to find the best locations. You'll find the dark petrified wood as soon as you enter the area. The petrified wood here is unlike any of the more popular 'stands' of petrified wood, as here it is black. Sometimes gray, sometimes with white striations, but mostly dark brown or black. Due to the relative lack of beauty, this are has not been as exploited as other locations. The best 'stand' of wood is located about a mile from the trailhead. Walk along the wash until you see about 20 big logs laying on the western slope of a hill. The soil is fairly light colored (the blue Bentonite clay, as I recall), so exposure in the full sun can be a bit of a trick, so very late afternoon (when the top of the hill casts a shadow over the stand) or cloudy days might provide better light.   Note: if you want to see some of the brown/orange/red petrified wood, there is a nice little bit of it at the Escalante Petrified Wood State Park, just west of Escalante. You'll need to hike uphill a couple hundred feet, but there are some very nice samples laying about. The best locations are on the Sleeping Rainbow loop trail off the main loop. There is also a location at the far south end of the same hill that has an almost moonlike appearance that might be worth an extra quarter mile hike if you like abstract shots. Just to the east of Wolverine canyon is Death Hollow. Note that there are in the area two Death Hollows: one here and the other north of Escalante in the Box-Death Hollow Wilderness. Higher up the canyon, in the Little Death Hollow, is a photogenic narrows, but it's quite a hike in (about 7 miles), and one I've never explored. As you continue out of the area to the east (you are on the Wolverine loop, but doing the loop isn't, of course, required; I always do the loop to see the most territory) you'll pass through the White Canyon area, with many interesting opportunities to photograph of the small but highly weathered canyons that cross the area. As you near the Burr Trail you'll encounter some signs of cattle ranching, of road construction, and RV sports. The Burr Trail: Capitol Reef National Park Soon you'll get to the end of the pavement. There you'll see a sign indicating you are leaving the Monument. Just to the north of that sign is a low hill that provides a rather nice vantage point of the juniper forest, the 'teeth' of the Waterpocket fold, some of the southeastern Circle Cliffs, and of the Swap mesa and Henry mountains to the east. Sunset shots are pretty good here with a medium to long lens. Continue down the road to enter Capitol Reef. I've always thought that Swap Canyon, a jagged series of buttresses just across the valley (in a ENE direction, below the Henry mountains) is the most attractive thing in the landscape. A long lens will compress the distance between the buttresses nicely. Capitol Reef National Park is a long, narrow park, running north to south. Most visitors see only Frutia and the scenic drive, but the most interesting parts of the park are accessed via dirt roads to the north (cathedral valley and the Temples of the Sun and of the Moon) and to the south (the Waterpocket fold). The Burr Trail enters the park in the middle of the Waterpocket fold area. The Waterpocket fold is a fold in the crust. A big fold. A section of the crust formed an enormous bulge, hundreds of miles across with 45 degree walls, then eroded. The Waterpocket Fold is what is left after the erosion, just the roots of the bulge, really. The name "Waterpocket" comes from the propensity of the sandstone in the area to form potholes, or water pockets, that collect and hold water for weeks after a storm. The Waterpocket Fold was named by John Wesley Powell during his great survey mission in the area. The most prominent feature of the fold is a layer of white Navajo sandstone, lying at an acute angle, that form a miles-long row of jagged teeth. They are best viewed from the valley, but you first view of them is from the back side. As you continue toward the Reef, you'll find a well-used dirt road leading north. This road goes in a about a half mile to a turnaround area. Travel beyond this point is possible, but only in a high-clearance 4WD vehicle (if you can make it past the ditch just beyond the turnaround, you can make it up to the parking area 2.5 miles in). Another quarter mile on you'll find the Upper Muley Twist Canyon trailhead. In all it's a 3 mile hike up 300 feet to one of the best viewpoints in the West: the Strike Valley Overlook. It's called the Strike Valley overlook because the entire valley East of the Reef is a strike valley: it parallels the underlying rock strata. On the trail you'll see Peek-a-boo rock, and many pothole arches and one double arch high on the Muley Twist canyon walls. At the end of the road you'll find another trailhead, this one leading to the overlook. After a short stretch over sand you'll climb onto the rock. Watch for the rock cairns that mark the trail, and continue following them right over to the southern edge. The viewpoint is located atop one Navajo sandstone 'tooth' of the fold. This overlook is best viewed in the mid to late afternoon. Sunset shots there are compromised by the long shadows cast by the Circle Cliffs and other formations to the west. There are beautiful views here of the sweeping 'S' curve of the Reef valley to the south, and of Swap Canyon to the east. If you plan of a sunset shot here, and are hiking, don't forget your flashlight and plenty of water. Make a point of examining the small reef in the center of the valley in front of you. It's the Oyster Shell Reef, and it's a very small example of the reef upon which you stand. Look closely just beyond the Oyster Shell Reef and you'll spot the north-to-south-running Notom to Bullfrog Road. The Burr Trail drops into the valley at your right, and joins that road. Take it north to US24, or south to the Bullfrog marina on the shore of Lake Powell. As you continue down the Burr Trail you'll find a small picnic site just before the switchbacks. Here is a nice view of the upper mouth of the Lower Muley Twist canyon, one of the hiking Mecca's of this area. The Burr Trail: The Switchbacks To descend through the reef into the valley a small engineering feat was needed. In the Fold was a gap, where the Navajo sandstone had eroded completely. In it's earliest days this was the only path toward the west out of the reef valley, and this is where Burr Trail was first named. The road that was later built in the gap is the second-most frightening set of switchbacks in the West (the scariest set is on the Shafer trail that climbs up into Canyonlands National Park from the rim below Dead Horse Point; some say that the Hells Backbone Trail between Boulder and Escalante is scarier, but it's just a more exposed route, not steeper or trickier). The switchbacks (there are only three) should not be attempted by cars with weak brakes or clutches, by RVs, or by anything towing a trailer. The switchbacks climb 800 vertical feet in 2700 feet of road. That's more than one vertical foot up for every four horizontal feet! The roadbed is dirt, so don't try it in a storm. The road is graded several times a year, but potholes still develop rapidly. In the valley you'll have some great morning shots of the fold to the west, and afternoon shots of the mesas to the east. Take the Notom to Bullfrog road south and you'll find the landscape opens up pretty quickly. But to the north you'll find some of the best shots of the fold, and of the Tarantula mesa before the landscape there flattens out at the southern end of The Blues. I'll end my description of the Burr Trail here. I guess technically it continues down to Lake Powell, but the photographic opportunities aren't very abundant there (because of all the build up around the marina). Nearby Locations: Boulder Mountain North on SR-12. Boulder mountain has several viewpoints on the southeastern and eastern sides. Here are magnificent, if slightly hazy, vistas of the Burr Trail and Capitol Reef. The Homestead viewpoint has maps, but I've found that bringing my own large map of the area and a compass is the only way to locate all the places we've been. Long Canyon, the trail over the flats, the northern and eastern Circle Cliffs are all visible. Also on Boulder mountain are some nice national Forest Service campgrounds (open in season) that are considerably cooler than the desert floor below. Nearby Locations: Capitol Reef National Park North on SR-12 to Torrey, then East on US-24 to Frutia. This brings you to the typical tourist entrance to the Capitol Reef. You don't have to pay an entrance fee until you get to the start of the scenic drive. Camping is pleasant here, and there is certainly plenty to shoot along the scenic drive (nice evening views of the well-defined sandstone cliffs), in the Grand and Capitol washes (look for more swiss cheese and flood erosion), and even outside the park along US-24. Look for the uniquely eroded domes of white Navajo sandstone that gave the park it's name. To get good photos of them inside the park you'll need to hike up to the top of the mesas, though. There are a few vantage points East of the park on US-24 where you can get good shots of the domes next to the road. Nearby Locations: The Hells Backbone South on SR-12. The town of Boulder remained isolated until the 1930's when the Civilian Conservation Corps built the first road into the area. It linked Boulder to Escalante, and is a hair-raising drive. The road departs west from State Route 12 about seven miles south of Boulder. A loop drive can be made by taking the Backbone to Escalante, then returning via SR-12. Nearby Locations: The Hogsback In the mid '60's the state got funding for a new road to boulder, to be known as Utah State Route 12. It had to cross some of the most inhospitable canyons, and in its winding it had to cross the Hogsback ridge, about 8 miles south of Boulder. It's also called the million dollar highway, because so much was spent stabilizing the roadbed along the very peak of the narrow ridge. There is no great viewpoint of the road itself, but you can find wonderful vistas nearby, due to the 600 and 400 foot exposures. This is the first of many sites along U-12, considered by many to be the most interesting and scenic road in the United States. Nearby Locations: Lower Calf Creek Falls Another four miles from the Hogsback Ridge is the Calf Creek campground and trailhead. Here you can hike in about four miles (lose sand much of the way) to Lower Calf Creek Falls. The falls are actually located just below the Hogsback (see photo below), but there is no access to them from above. Many who do the hike spend a little time playing in the water at the base of the falls, which can interrupt any shots you may attempt, so visiting during the off-season is best. I think the best time is late October, when the trees are turning the the tourists are all home. The falls are about 120 feet high, and there is a lovely pattern of green moss on the rock behind them. Mid afternoon seems to provide the most direct light.   Nearby Locations: Over-The-Rocks About 14 miles south of Boulder, SR-12 passes over a bare formation of Navajo sandstone. It's called the Over-the-rocks area, and is particularly photogenic early or late in the day. You can also find some nice shots here of the ribbon of road laying on the rocks. Keep a look out for soft shoulders, and look for shots in the many side canyons just north of the area. Nearby Locations: Hole-In-The-Rock Road About 19 miles south of Boulder on U-12, just East of Escalante. The Hole-in-the-rock road is named for a famous excavation sixty miles from the turnoff. Some early settlers in the area thought they'd move down past the Escalante to try farming there. So they built a long, straight road that paralleled the straight cliffs. It took them a couple years to move 60 miles, and they ended up on the top of a cliff overlooking the Escalante. Their only choice was to cut a path down to the river. That path is the Hole in the Rock. Unfortunately, the way there is so rough that only high-clearance 4WD's can get there. Those of us in passenger cars must content ourselves to the first 40 miles of so of the road. The road is graded, but dust holes still form there. The road heads southeast. To the southwest are the Straight Cliffs, forming the edge of the Fiftymile Bench, which is the northeastern edge of the Kaiparowits plateau. These cliffs are the gray cliffs, the fourth step in the Grand Staircase, and one of the few places where the steps face north. the first step (considered by some not to be one of the steps proper) are the brown (or chocolate) cliffs of the Grand Canyon. The vermilion cliffs along US-89 are the second step. In Zion National Park are the best examples of the white cliffs. And the top step, the pink cliffs, are best seen at Bryce Canyon National Park and at the towering Powell Point, northeast of Bryce Canyon. As you travel down the road it looks much like the Flats, but without the juniper. In fact there are some big canyons carved by the Escalante and its many tributaries located generally to the east of the road. The most popular locations along the road is Devils garden, and the slot canyons in the Dry Fork of Coyote Gulch. Devils Garden, located just off the road about 12 miles down the Hole-in-the-rock road, is a whimsical assortment of hoodoos. It's much like a small version of Goblin Valley, only with better-looking figures. There are also a couple small arches here. Picnic areas, and a vault toilet make this a nice mid-day stop. You'll need to spend a little time here hiking in the soft sand to find the better shots, but this really is a nice place to shoot. The best shots are had early morning and late evening. Continue down the road another 12 or 13 miles (26.5 miles from SR-12) to the Dry Fork of Coyote Gulch. You'll need to drive in a mile (north) to the parking area over some very worn road, then hike another mile or so down into the canyon, but the effort is worth it. The dry fork has a very accessible narrows to the northwest (photo below), and three slot canyons. Some of the slots are difficult to reach (Peek-a-boo especially, you need to climb up 12 feet using shallow footholds cut into the sandstone, see photo right; Brimstone requires equipment, I'm told, to get through), but others, like Spooky, can be walked into (once you've found the entrance over a dune; I'm also told that Peek-a-boo can be entered from the top via a 15 minute walk over the dune to the left). Small-format hand-held equipment is much preferred while scrambling between narrow walls. The hike out of the canyon is rather taxing, so save most of your water for the climb and take your time. You will be walking on loose sand most of the time (on both the trail and in the canyon). I'm told there are some narrows in the main wash to the south, but I've never hiked down to find them. Links: An article by Schemeker on hiking in the area A very informative Escalante-Boulder Chamber of Commerce site Dry Fork of the Coyote information, from Utah.com Burr Trail History, from Utah Travel Center Anasazi State Park Boulder Mountain Lodge, in Boulder, things to do in the area Hells Backbone Grill, in Boulder Bryce Canyon County (Garfield County) Tourism site, lodging, dining A driving guide for the Burr Trail, from Bullfrog to Boulder An article on shooting in the Canyons of the Escalante area Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument Home Page American Southwest page on the Monument CanyoneeringUSA: a great guide to the Escalante canyons Books and maps: National Geographic Trails Illustrated Map 710: Canyons of the Escalante Laurent Martes: Photographing the Southwest, Vol 1, Graphie International, 2002. Joe Benson, Scenic Driving Utah, Falcon, 1996. *Note: You should consider this article a first draft. I have only spent about three weeks in the area, and there is much more to explore. This spring and summer (2003) I'll be spending a few more weeks there, and I'll update this article then.

 

Maps (click to download larger graphics, sorry about the large size of the .gif files.)

Boulder to Long Canyon:

Western Circle Cliffs area:

Eastern Circle Cliffs/Waterpocket Fold area:

Detailed maps:

Long Canyon:

Wolverine and Death Hollow:

Waterpocket Fold and Capitol Reef:

San Rafael Swell

Photography in the Northern San Rafael Swell                     This article should be printed in landscape orientation.

This is a guide to photography in the San Rafael Swell. Particularly, the half of the Swell North of Interstate 70. A guide to the southern half will likely follow in 2005.

The Swell is a geological uplift in central Utah. It is roughly kidney shaped, and is ringed by the towns of Price, Green River, Hanksville, Cainsville, the northern part of Capitol Reef National Park, Fish Lake National Forest, Emery, Castle Dale, Huntington, and Cleveland (map). In all about 60 miles long and 30 miles wide. The uplift, in this case, is a non-symmetrical dome of rock pushed up by great pressures below over the space of millions of years. During the uplift process, much of the rock was eroded away, leaving some beautifully varied and exposed layers. Since the east side formed a steep slope, it has eroded into a reef, white Navajo sandstone visible from the east, and red Wingate cliffs from the west. Here are the tall red cliffs for which the Colorado Plateau is known, old limestone buttes, and stretches of sandy desert. The bulk of Utah's red cliff canyons are found southward in the Colorado Plateau, a huge uplift covering four states, and is the home of some of the nation's most scenic red-rock national parks: Zion's, Bryce, Arches, Canyonlands, and Grand Canyon, to name a few. The San Rafael Swell is the only other place you can see these formations exposed.

Human History

There is no permanent human settlement in the Swell, nor has there ever been. Wilsonville was the first settlement in the area (founded by my Great-Great Grandfather; see the historical article by my father by clicking the link above). It was located a couple miles southeast of what is now Castle Dale. It's gone now, but the other towns in the area, like Wilsonville, exist only at the more habitable periphery of the Swell. There have always been, it seems, a few livestock men in the Swell itself, but never permanently. Mexican Mountain is named for a shepherd of Mexican descent, and many geological features are names after one of the Swazy (a.k.a. Swazey or Swayze) brothers (Joe and his Dog, Swazy's Leap, Sids Hole, etc.), who made a living either gathering wild horses to sell to the army or by running cattle. Currently no one lives in the Swell longer than the rangers at Goblin Valley State Park, and even they are just outside the Reef.

As you travel through the area you will find evidence of the only people to have halfway managed a living in the Swell: the Barrier and Desert Cultures, then the Fremont, then the Ute and Paiute cultures. All were migratory, and stayed in the Swell only part of each year. I highly recommend a visit to the Museum of the San Rafael (Castle Dale) to see some artifacts these people left in the Swell. And of course you'll be seeing some of the abundant rock art they have left us.

Lodging

I always camp in the Swell. The most obvious camp is the Bridge campground, a BLM-operated, 12-site waterless camp. It's a Spartan place to camp, each site having only a table, a fire pit, and some having a tent pad, with a community vault toilet, but it is only $6 per day, not bad for the price. Since the Swell is so big, I've also camped in many other locations (always trying to practice Leave No Trace ethics): on the Wedge overlook, under the cottonwoods near the river along Mexican Mountain road, in the juniper atop Cedar Mountain. You can also camp along the road to the Jackass Benches. It's all primitive camping, with absolutely no facilities. Try to camp in established sites. Amazingly, for an undeveloped area, there are six public toilets in the northern part of the Swell: at the Wedge overlook, at the Cedar Mountain picnic area, midway down Buckhorn Wash, at the Buckhorn pictograph panel, at the Bridge campground, and at Swazy's cabin.

If you are not a camper, there are small towns with good lodging near the main access roads into the area: Green River (for access via I-70), Castle Dale (for access from the west), and Price (for access from the north). Lodging in the town has the drawback of adding at least an hour to your morning drive times, and the benefit of not camping in the dust and biting gnats. Oh, the gnats. They come out in April, and stay 'till about July. They are the only real pest in the Swell, and I frequently visit the area in winter just to avoid them.

There is no drinking water available anywhere in the Swell. Bring your own, and bring lots. I bring at least a gallon a day, plus three to spare. Bring two gallons a day in the hot summer months. If you plan to use water from the San Rafael River or from Sid's Hole (the only water you can find in summer) you'll need to purify it. It isn't too dirty, but is is downstream from some pastures

Roads

All roads in the Swell, except for I-70, are dirt. The more trafficked roads are bladed a couple times a year, and Spring 2003 the road from Castle Dale to the Bridge, and roads to the north and south of the Well were oiled  (to keep the dust down). But even the better-maintained roads are still hard on tires and your car. Most of the locations I refer to can be accessed in a passenger car, and I will note on the maps or in the text which roads will require an SUV, and which need a jeep or ATV to travel. But please note that a good and careful driver can take a passenger car on a road I'll label for SUV's, or can take an SUV down a road I'll label for jeeps. I drive a Subaru Forester (compact SUV) and an Honda Rincon (4WD ATV), which I've used to "calibrate" my road standards.

I do have one thing to say about wet roads: AVOID THEM! The dry desert will soak up light rain without wetting the ground at all. But on occasion a rainstorm will wet the roads, especially late summer. In winter the snowmelt can also turn the surface of the roads into mud. The mud is slick and sticky. It is difficult to drive in, leaves ruts in the road, and it will probably never come off your car completely. I drove in light mud once, and two months later, after repeated pressure washes, the mud I collected that day is still falling out of the suspension.

But of more immediate concern in a rainstorm is flash flooding in the valleys. The roads in the Swell cross many dry washes that can flash flood in a good storm. Flash floods, bringing water down from the plateaus above, might bear car-sized boulders and can appear before or after local rainfall. I always carry a few days food and water in the car when I'm away from camp in case I get stuck out some place because of the rain. It's better to wait a few days where you are than risk slipping into a gully hurrying back to town. You'd still have to wait, only sideways, half buried in mud.

To drive in the Swell you should have maps. The best maps to have are the National Geographic/Trails Illustrated map of the San Rafael Swell (map # 712), and the BLM February 2003 Vehicle Access Map (I got mine from the brochure kiosk at the Museum of the San Rafael in Castle Dale). Large maps of the area, like travel maps or the Delorme and Benchmark State map books, are useless for navigation. I also use the National Geographic Topo! maps of Utah for reference and for map display in the article. And of course a good GPS unit with topo maps is invaluable.

The Castle Dale Road/Green River Cutoff

I've always enjoyed the 20 mile drive into the Swell from Castle Dale. The turnoff from highway 10 is barren, but there is a photogenic old corral complex there. As you drive in you pass over the Blue Gate shale, past the gray Tununk shale cliffs, past the colorful Morrison and Cedar Mountain formations (made of decomposed volcanic ash, maroon, blue, green, much like the Bentonite Hills to the south of the Swell), it's like driving through another land. I think it's this entrance that best introduces the Swell. The passage through this surreal landscape clears the palate, one might say, for the grandeur that is coming. As the high cliffs of Cedar Mountain come into view, you'll pass geological features that have been navigation points for centuries: the White Rocks, the Red Knoll, and the Buckhorn Flats Well. The Red Knoll is a butte-like outcropping of Entrada sandstone that was sufficiently capped by Curtis formation conglomerate to protect it from erosion. Just past the cattle guard you can drive south to a very nice alcove of Entrada sandstone. While not as interesting as the hoodoos of Goblin Valley (same rock layer, different erosion process), it is a fun place to explore and shoot. Just beyond the Red Knoll is the great intersection in Buckhorn flat, a central landmark of the northernmost part of the Swell. Here roads lead to the Wedge and the Red Ledges (south), to Cedar Mountain (north), to the Buckhorn Draw (east), and to the Green River Cutoff (also east). And of course Castle Dale (west).

Before I-70 was put through the Green River Cutoff was the main road between Green River and Castle Dale. The western part of the road is now the most traveled road in the Swell (apart from I-70) and is well-maintained. As you continue east to Highway 6 the road gets narrower, more rocky, and frankly more interesting. You'll pass by the old railroad grade that was going to be the main Union Pacific line through Utah (it was abandoned before any rail was laid, the bosses preferring a direct route through Price then over Soldier Summit to Spanish Fork). You'll also pass some parts of the Old Spanish Trail, but I've never found the Trail itself particularly interesting. Farther east the road passes through the Entrada formations and some pleasantly-rounded conglomerate formations on the twisty road.

 

The Wedge

One of the three most popular places in the Swell (the others being Goblin Valley and the Buckhorn pictograph panel), the Wedge overlooks the Little Grand Canyon of the San Rafael River (map). Coming in from any direction the turnoff is that famous human landmark in the northern Swell: the Buckhorn Flats Well. My father says that you can drink the water from that well, but you must avoid any sudden movements for a few days afterwards. The pump is in the small building.

The wedge overlooks the Little Grand Canyon. The best light for the Little Grand Canyon is in the summer, when the sun rises northerly enough to illuminate the far slopes and ridges opposite the overlook. I think the best viewpoints are on the east side of the Wedge. There is a nice long outcrop midway along, and a very nice view from the most eastern point. In winter the sun rises right up the San Rafael River valley to the southeast. When the sun shines on the rim of the canyon, there is a serious contrast issue that is solved only through digital techniques, or by pulling the film during development. If you expose for the lit rock, shadows will drop into blackness; expose for shadows, and the rims are blown out. I prefer the minutes just before the sun rises, and just after the sun sets, when the light is still directional and colored, but much flatter.

If you continue around the rim road to the east you'll find another point (facing the northeast) with some nice mid-morning shots of Good Water Canyon with great foreground rock formations. If you have a 4WD, there is a fun jeep trail (suitable for any SUV) that leads through seemingly virgin plateau. There I've seen the best patches of crypto in Utah; watch your step, please. The trail continues back to the road leading to the Wedge from Buckhorn Flats.

There are overlook points on the west side of the Wedge, but I've never had much luck there. There are a few campers here on a typical weekend.

Cedar Mountain

Cedar mountain is 1500 feet above the Wedge plateau, but it provides a grand overlook of the entire northern Swell (map). Getting to the top of Cedar Mountain from the Wedge takes 45 minutes to an hour, as you need to drive to the north side of the wedge-shaped mountain, though it's only nine miles away as the crow flies. There is a recreational site at the top of the mountain, an overlook and a picnic area. The picnic area has better facilities, with ten or so tables and informational plaques at the well-built overlook. Unfortunately, the eastern view of the swell is blocked by higher parts of the mountain. Kids have a blast here, if your family is along. There are some nature trails here also.

The best overlook of the Swell is up by the antennas (map). If you look for a small brown building on the right of the road, you'll find a driveway just west. Park on the main road (so as not to park on the ground wires running across the driveway) and walk south directly toward the edge. You'll find a nice flat rock with a view of the Swell in it's entirety, but because of some electric wires to the east, shots of the Book and Roan Cliffs are less than optimal. Views of the Swell with a wide-angle lens (you'll need at least a 24mm to get it, but a 20mm lens is better; it's definitely a panoramic shot) will include a sweeping bit of the Green River Cutoff road below, but it isn't unsightly unless there is traffic kicking up dust. If you want some foreground juniper and conglomerate rocks, there is a location farther on, at the southeast point that will provide some opportunities if you search.

The road continues around the eastern side of the mountain (SUV or jeep) for a top-down view of Chimney Rock and unobstructed views of the Book and Roan Cliffs on the eastern horizon. Look for a north-going road about halfway down the wide dirt runway, then look for a trail going east about 1 mile along.

Buckhorn Draw

This is the second most popular spot in the Swell, and for good reason. The Draw was cut by the creek running down the canyon before Buckhorn Reservoir was put in (map). It's remarkable for its geology, cutting down through the Navajo, Kayenta, Wingate, Chinle, and Moenkopi sandstone formations, the strata known as the Glen Canyon Group for which the Colorado Plateau is so well known. Partway down the Draw are the Cow and Calf canyons, both prominently visible from Cedar Mountain. Here is a short list of some of the things to look for as you descend from the Buckhorn Draw turnoff, or from the Bridge coming up:
 

From Turnoff	From Bridge	Feature
1.6 mi	7.7 mi	Dinosaur footprint east of road on shelf; parking on west side of road.
2.3	7.0	Pictographs on the east side of road; park south of cattle guard.
4.2	5.1	"Mat Warner" on rock, about 30 feet up on west side of road.
4.7	4.6	Toilet
5.1	4.2	Look for "TKG" bullet holes on southern wall; small but photogenic pictographs close by.
5.6	3.7	Buckhorn pictograph panel, info kiosks, toilet. Major attraction.
9.3	0	Swinging Bridge

Shooting the petroglyphs (figures etched into the "desert varnish" patina covering the rock) or pictographs (figures drawn onto the rock with pigments) is best done in shade; sidelit panels reveal too much of the underlying texture, obscuring the figures. The Buckhorn Panel has been "restored", meaning they have removed all trace of modern man, including Jim Bridger's name.

The Wash comes out at the San Rafael River, and the swinging bridge put in by the Civil Conservation Corps in the '30's that remained in use 'till the '80's. The Bridge Campground is also here, a central location for the northern Swell and the place I typically camp. In the vicinity of the river are many locations from which the Wingate cliffs are seen above the river at sunrise or sunset (best in winter, I think). If you are in the Swell in the late spring or early summer, you'll find the biting gnats around the river are particularly pestilent.

Just north of the Bridge is a turnoff (actually a series of turnoffs all going the same place) to Mexican Mountain Road.

Mexican Mountain Road

This road, for me the most photogenic road in the Swell, is also the bendiest road in Utah. There isn't a single straight stretch in its 16-mile (or so) length. Of all the roads in the Swell, it's probably also the road in best condition (except for the ends). It runs from the Bridge down to the Mexican Mountain area.

The road, rutted badly just at the first, passing some soft, gray cliffs of the Moenkopi formation. The surreal look of these cliffs contrasts nicely with the handsome Wingate cliffs above.

Look for a road to a river overlook to the west just after the big climb. From this vantage you can get morning shots of a bend in the river with Assembly Hall Peak (to the north) or Window Blind peak (south) in the background. By the way, the "blinds" of Window Blind peak are located on the top, facing northeast. As you proceed down the road, you'll find many more of these overlooks, but none will be as easily accessed, and most require as much as a quarter-mile hike.  I try to use flowers, like the primrose, as foreground elements at locations above the river, and use the river as the mid-ground element in the composition. Other side roads run to the rivers edge, providing opportunities to contrast the foreground river and barren cliffs. The morning and evening shots are problematic when the peaks are far better lit than the river valley; you'll need a 2- or 3-stop ND grad filter to control the contrast range. River valley shots, are, of course, best when the trees have greened up, mid-May 'till October. You can get shots of the western cliffs during winter only; in summer the sun rises over the cliffs.

In the evening the shots shift to the eastern side of the road when the cliffs are lit up by the sun setting up the valley (the sun moves more northward in summer, and this gives a more dramatic angle on these cliffs). In winter the sun rises along these cliffs and sets right down the Little Grand Canyon.

Red Canyon is one of the two hikable, photogenic canyons that penetrate these cliffs. Red Canyon forks, and the southern fork (to the right) gets the best afternoon light (at least when I was there in March). White Horse Canyon, farther down the road (beyond the first gate) is a bit steeper and not as deep. But there is also a short and fun hike down the hall-like White Horse streambed. Look for some parking in the streambed at the bottom of a deep wash that leads to some stair step falls. Continue down the corridor-like canyon for a quarter mile to the big falls (which will be dry if the canyon is hikable).

After you pass this draw look for the first of two trailheads with kiosks. The first is the trailhead for those descending into the Upper Black Box (or Lockhart Box) part of the San Rafael River. It doesn't hold as much photographic interest as the second trailhead,  which is also intended to be an access point to the middle of the Upper Black Box, but there is at the second trailhead a scenic trail worth the effort to hike (map). The scenic trail follows an old jeep trail for about a mile to a limestone ridge. If you look down to the west you'll see a flat, then the river canyon. Look for a trail on the flat heading to the river. It leads to a very nice overlook down into the Black Box. The climb off the ridge is an easy one, following the almost stair-step fracturing of the limestone. The name Black Box comes from the color of the walls, which were originally white to buff in color, but lichen had darkened them. The flat limestone of the overlook provides excellent traction, but it is extremely exposed. The edge of the 600 foot drop is not a place for children or pets.

As you continue towards Mexican Mountain, you can look back at the symmetrical Window Blind Peak standing out on the limestone floor. As you pass through the second gate, you'll find the road condition takes a turn for the worst as it passes over the ledges. If you are in a passenger car and don't want to attempt it, just north of the second gate is a bench that provides a nice view of the Mountain and it's surroundings. You'll have the road in the foreground, but with a telephoto you can isolate just Mexican Mountain and some aspect of the cliffs surrounding it.

For those wanting to continue (passenger cars can make it with careful selection of your track), you'll find the road ends at the edge of the Mexican Mountain Wilderness Study Area. About 150 yards back from the big steel gate marking the edge of the WSA is a parking area. Closer to the mountain you'll need to go on foot. The scenics here are varied and marvelous. Close in you'll find some very rugged limestone canyons. There are jeep trails you can follow down into the canyons, where you'll find more overlooks of the Black Box, and some whimsical figures created by the erosion of the limestone. The center of attraction is Mexican Mountain and the cottonwoods on the banks of the river as it bends most of the way around the Mountain (hence the name Mexican Bend). But the cliffs surrounding the Bend also provide nice shots when the sun strikes them at an angle. The base of Mexican Mountain is eroded into a very attractive series of ridges that show particularly well when side-lit.

There is a second shot of Mexican Mountain from the cliffs above. To get there you must start at a place called Smith's Cabin, on the eastern side of the San Rafael Reef. It's a bit of a hike up (1500 feet up), but you can position yourself on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the Bend. The third grand view of the mountain is seen from the Jackass Benches, to the southwest (see below).

Cottonwood Draw Road

Cottonwood Draw Road (also called the Buckhorn Wash  or Buckhorn Draw Road) connects the Bridge to exit 129 on I-70 and locations southward. It's main function to a photographer is to provide access to other parts of the broad limestone valley of the inner Swell. As in most places in the Swell, interesting shots are found in many locations just off the road. But here I'll concentrate on the major attractions.

Just south of the Bridge is Bottleneck Peak. The trick of shooting it is separating it from the cliffs on the west. Sometimes taking the road west along the river is needed to get a good vantage. The Peak shows it's thinnest aspect from Cottonwood Wash Road. You can also find good shots of Assembly Hall Peak from the tops of the limestone benches south of the Bridge.

For those of you with a 4WD and a sense of adventure there are many two-tracks off Cottonwood Wash Road leading to old mines or test wells, many of which remain open after the February 2003 road orders. Like most places in the Swell, side roads are not marked. I must confess, however, that the views out on these trails is really no different from any you can find right off the road. Often climbing up to the top of a bench changes the vista remarkably, and I think the climbs are worthwhile. Just find some donkey tracks and follow them up.

Sid's Hole, a small reservoir that holds water remarkably late into summer, is 9.3 miles south of the bridge and 5 miles north of the sinkhole. The hole lies at the bottom of a small but photogenic little valley. Morning light flatters it best. This is another fun place for kids.

The sinkhole mentioned above is a landmark, but not much of a shot. It's a deposit of gypsum that has dissolved, leaving a sinkhole.  It's surrounded by a circular fence.

To the west of the road is Oil Well Flats (which totally lacks oil wells). This road gives access to the cliffs on the west side of the inner Swell, including the imposing Pinnacles (which I'm told by climbers can be climbed without ropes--I didn't believe them), No Man's Mountain, and the cliffs above Cane Wash. For the really adventurous, a dive down Cane Wash is challenging and fun, but is for 4WD's only.

Cattle is wintered in the Swell. I was there late March 2003 when they were rounded up to transport to the high range. I don't know when they come back down. I'm guessing September.

The Jackass Benches

 In the southern part of the inner section of the northern half of the Swell (in other words, just north of I-70), are the Rattlesnake Flats and Benches, and the Jackass Flats and Benches. The Jackass Benches, because they are the most eastern situated and provide a grand view of the Mexican Mountain area, are of most interest to the photographer. I'm willing to say that the view from the Jackass Benches can rival any other view in the Colorado Plateau. They are named for the resident but elusive wild burros.

The Jackass and Rattlesnake Benches look much like the Limestone Benches to the north. They are accessed by passenger car, but to drive right up to a viewpoint you'll need a 4WD or some hiking. From the bridge, the turnoff is just over a hill 13.5 miles south on Cottonwood Draw Road. From I-70 (exit 129), it's 5.8 miles north, half mile north of the sinkhole. Drive 1.7 miles and stay on the left. You'll pass the road (right) to Black Dragon Wash in 0.2 miles, and another 1.7 miles will take you to a large fork in the road. This is the start of a loop, and the right-hand side is the better direction. Passenger cars can navigate this easily. In 3.7 miles is a turnoff to the right that goes up the hill. If you have a 4WD, you can take it. If not, don't even try. The road leads to the Sulfur Springs trailhead. This road is interesting because it's the only road that passes over the top of a bench. And it's from the tops of the benches that the best views are had.

If you travel south just a bit once you are on top you will find a view (up the NE-directed canyon) right next to the road. But if you are willing to walk a half mile or so, parking right at the top of the bench, then walking northeast will take you to the northeast edge where the best views are. You can also travel on down the very rough road (with only one washout) to get a more intimate view of the interior "teeth" of the San Rafael Reef. Note as you walk that the entire bench top is tilted; you are walking on the slope of the 'swell'.

Another very good viewpoint, and the best one for those who can't drive up to the right, is to hike up the Bench to the left (north). If you continue around the loop to the end of the bench, look for a prominent rock fall at the top (southeast corner) that allows access up the slope to the top. The best route up is the ridge to the right of the little valley. Again, find some burro tracks and follow them up. The view from this bench is a little better than that to the south, as this view includes rugged canyons in the floor of the Swell as the mid-ground. And as always, the old junipers on the bech tops make for great foreground elements. I think you can also gain access to the top of this Bench from the north side, where the trial to Swazy's Leap leaves the loop. The Benches here are about 600 feet tall, about the same height as the switchbacks in Bryce's Navajo trail. I'm overweight and out of shape, and the climb wasn't too bad. Bring water.

The road to Swazy's Leap, mentioned above, is 4 miles of 4WD road, then a 2 mile walk to the location Sid Swazy is said to have bet his brother that his horse could jump the San Rafael River. There is a sort of bridge there now, an old sheep crossing. Again, there are benches that provide a good view of the Mountain along the road, especially by the trailhead.

On the north side of the loop, about 3 miles north of the fork, is a road to the north (1.7 mi, 4WD) that passes a lone round bench with a good view from on top.

The San Rafael Reef

The Reef looks from the east like a series of sloping, triangular teeth. The bulk of the reef is a layer of white Navajo sandstone, with smaller triangles of Carmel Formation at the bottom. There is a tourist shot at the rest stop off I-70, east of the Reef, from the hill just to the north of the parking area. Better shots (and ones that don't include the freeway in the foreground) are had by traveling north at the US24 exit. You'll need to find a road leading west to get out of Buckmaster Draw to a viewpoint of the Reef, with Tidwell draw and the San Rafael River in the foreground.

Farther north along the Reef is Smiths Cabin, and the trail that leads up the Reef to the Mexican Mountain overlook. You'll need an SUV to get to Smith's Cabin, and strong legs to climb the Reef.

To the south you can take US24 3.3 miles to a road heading west. This road takes you around Shadscale Mesa toward The Squeeze to the north or toward access to smaller canyons to the south.

The most famous location in the northern Reef is Black Dragon Canyon. You get there via westbound I-70, 0.3 miles beyond mile marker 145. Look for a gate off the road to the north. A rough road leads to Black Dragon Wash. In Black Dragon Canyon are several famous, but not particularly photogenic, panels. Many of them have been chalked (the figures outlines with white chalk to show better) which makes them look silly to my eye. Some of the panels are high on the wall.

Head of Sinbad

The desert south of I-70 is called Sinbad Country. It looks like the Jackass Bench area, but more eroded. To the northwest side of Sinbad Country is a small circle of desert surrounded by Navajo sandstone cliffs. This area is known as the Head of Sinbad. In the Head that is north of I-70 is a good pictograph panel, and an arch. Getting there requires a bit of a roundabout drive (indicated on the map) and passage through a small tunnel under the freeway, but it can easily be done in an SUV, or carefully in an passenger car.

The Dutchman Arch is accessed by the left-hand road as you exit the tunnel heading north. The arch does not stand up from the rock as arches do near Moab, but from the back (north) side a shot can be had in the afternoon (when the brightly-lit rock through the opening will wash out when the exposure is set for the shadowed arch). In any event, it's a nice place for a picnic.

The Head of Sinbad Pictograph panel is a little harder to find. Head back toward the tunnel, and take the road that leads east. Look for a prominent (and worn) road north toward a fence. The fence is protecting the panel. This panel looks (to me) more authentic and interesting than Buckhorn as it has been neither restored nor defaced. There is a second pictograph panel to the east of this one. It's not a particularly interesting panel, as the figures there, found in two groups, are either faded badly or chopped in half when a slab of sandstone fell. The bottom half of the figures there appear cartoonish to me, and must have been quite a contrast to the more stately and abstract figures of the west-ward panel.

The Head of Sinbad is the top of the Swell. Water drains away in all directions.

South of I-70, but also in the Head, is Swazy's Cabin. It's recently been built up as a tourist area (new toilet, parking area, trail register), but they have removed the fence that used to surround the cabin, so you might get a morning shot there with the fanciful rock column in the background.

Cane Wash/Coal Wash/Devil's Racetrack/Eva Conover Trail

A fascinating series of Jeep/ATV trails wind through the Navajo sandstone canyons in the western reef.

Cane Wash is a dry streambed that most SUV's can navigate. It starts on the north end just past the Calf Mesa Uranium mine (accessed via the second left-hand road south of the Bridge on Cottonwood Wash road). The Wash itself isn't particularly interesting, but it does wind around back of the Pinnacles and along the western cliffs. At the southern end there are three roads out: the SUV road northeast to the Oil Well flats, an Jeep trail southeast to the Head of Sinbad, and the Jeep trail west to the North Coal Wash. The latter is the most interesting and photogenic. This trail, great for ATV's, crosses the rolling hills of the deep red-colored Chinle formation, and occasionally provides views into the interior of the Swell. This trail climbs over Fix-it-pass, then drops into North Fork of Coal Wash. As it does so it crosses a rock fall which requires a bit of skill to navigate.

From Ferron there is a road east that leads to the Coal Wash roads (the North and South forks). These are the only accessible roads in the area, which has Wilderness Study Area designation (thus all other roads are closed). You can drive an SUV through the washes, but to go beyond requires a Jeep or ATV. In North fork is Swasy's Arch, and in South fork is Slipper Arch. You can also see features like Joe and his Dog (Joe lost the bet), Devils Monument, and Devils Racetrack. You really need the BLM Access Map to figure out which roads are permitted, and which are closed. The Fix-it pass is found at the end of North fork, and the Eva Conover road is at the end of the South fork. Fix-it-pass crosses to the south end of Cane Wash, and Eva Conover crosses to the Head of Sinbad area. In North fork is also an ATV trail up to the Devil's Racetrack area (very rugged), and on to the Head of Sinbad.

I have had a wonderful day riding from the Bridge down Cane Wash, then over Fix-it-pass, down North Fork of Coal Wash, do an out-and-back to Devil's Racetrack, then up South fork, Eva Conover, then to the Head, and back to the Bridge via the ATV trail near exit 129 and Oil Flats road. Eight hours and 80 miles of pure fun.

The Red Ledges

This is a diagonal outcrop of Carmel formation cliffs topped by Entrada sandstone, a remarkable landmark. As you start down the road to the Wedge, look for a road south to Fullers Bottom. This road follows the Red Ledges down to the river, and if you want to ford the river, continues along the Ledges almost down to I-70. The Ledges are not particularly photogenic from a distance, where the length of them belies their height, but a short walk over the desert brings you to the foot of the cliffs, where you can find many opportunities.

Interesting Locations in the Southern San Rafael Swell

I anticipate that during the next year I can get down to the southern half of the Swell, and report properly on the area. Until then, a short list of the places I've been.

Goblin Valley State Park

Known for it's fanciful goblin-shaped Entrada sandstone hoodoos, this park is always a draw for photographers. The location is east of the reef, and in the San Rafael Desert proper. It's got limited camping, but it's also the only place in the swell that's got water and showers. The road to the Park gives access to the slot canyons listed below, and to the Temple Mountain area inside the Reef.

Little Wild Horse Canyon/Bell Canyon

Very good slot canyons, with better-than-average access. A full loop up LWH and down Bell canyon is about 6 miles long. Little Wild Horse is the better canyon. Other slot canyons in the area, Crack and Chute canyons, have less access and consequently fewer passersby to spoil a shot.

San Rafael Desert/Factory Butte

The Desert, located east of highway 24, is one of the more remote and uninhabited (even by tourists) areas in the US. Factory Butte, south of Goblin Valley, stands tall and strangely "organized" compared to the other eroded buttes nearby. It's named for a factory that once stood in south Provo, Utah (my home town).

Cathedral Valley

This is the north section of Capitol Reef National Park. Most tourists spend time south of highway 24, which divides the park. To the north is Cathedral Valley, a collection of tall and isolated buttes and monoliths in the desert. To get there you drive over the blue Bentonite clay (once a thick layer of volcanic ash from Boulder Mountain big eruption 50 million years ago). At the eastern end of the Valley is the Temple of the Sun and Temple of the Moon, both of which light up remarkably in the first and last light of day.

Tomsich Butte/Red Canyon

A very photogenic drive down the western side of the cliffs in the interior of the southern Swell. This is the southern continuation of the Cottonwood Wash Road.

Nearby Areas of Interest

Manti-LaSal National Forest

To the west of Castle Dale and Huntington is the Manti-LaSal national Forest. I use it as an escape from the desert heat in late spring and summer. Highway 31 and 29 both have campgrounds dotted along their length, but since national Forests have a reservation system, it's sometimes hard to find a spot on the weekend. Along the top ridge of the mountains is Skyline Drive, one of central Utah's best back country drives, providing great views of the Swell to the east.

Nine Mile Canyon

This road, which provides access to many pictograph and petroglyph panels, starts at Wellington, and goes up to the foot of the Uinta Mountains to the north. It takes a day to drive, with sufficient stops to see the panels, and is best done with one of the many Nine Mile Canyon guides (road logs to Native American art, here is the BLM guide). I got several at the well-done Mining and Railroad Museum in Helper (north of Price).

East Carbon City/Sunnyside/Taviputs Plateau

There is a network of 4WD roads in the Taviputs plateau (bounded on the west by the Book Cliffs) that are best accessed via the town of Sunnyside and the Sunnyside Mine.

Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Museum

Just north of Cedar Mountain is a museum explaining and exhibiting many of the dinosaur bones that have been uncovered in the Morrison formation in the Swell.

Environment

Botany

Wildflowers in the Swell are far more abundant than you'd think looking at the place in any season other than Spring. Click here to see some of the wildflowers I've found and tried to identify, mostly in April and May. As for trees, there are only a few. Away from the river there is only Juniper and Pinion Pine. The river is lined by Cottonwoods. I haven't made a study of the rest of the trees there.

Climate

The climate of the Swell is typical of southern Utah deserts. Humidity is always low, so carry drinking water at all times.  Summer is hot. Very hot. I try to avoid the place between May and September, when the afternoon temperature is above 95 �F (36 �C). In late Fall and Winter the night-time temperatures are below freezing, but it warms up during the day unless it's December, January or February. Warm fronts in winter or cold front in summer are rare. The late summer skies tend to be cloudless in the morning, giving way to daily afternoon thundclouds, with spring and fall bringing the most interesting clouds to compliment your scenics.  Skies in winter are cloudless in the absence of a storm. Currently (2003) there is a severe drought in Utah, so stream crossing is easy. In wetter years the river fords can be impassable and roads can become too muddy to drive for weeks at a time (San Rafael River flow rates).  Fortunately, the San Rafael crossings are either bridged or the road through the riverbed is closed.

 

  

Geology

Because the Swell pushed so high, and because it was eroded as it did so, a great part of the stratigraphic column, the sequence of sedimentary layers, is exposed (see the Geological history of Utah and an issue of Surveys with an article about the Swell). In most locations in the interior of the Swell at least six sedimentary layers are visible in the cliff walls. The major part of the Swell is a 30-mile-wide and 60-mile-long bulge ("anticline") pushed up by compression forces 60 million years ago, pushed slowly enough that the three rivers that pass through (Price River far to the north, the San Rafael River in the northern part, and the Dirty Devil River to the south) were not diverted during the upheaval process. In all the interior portion of the Swell is reminiscent of the Circle Cliffs area of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, but with far more beautiful scenic views and better access to viewpoints. If you have red-blue 3D glasses, look at this 3D map of the Swell (use a red lens over your left eye, and a blue lens over the right. Source.).  On the eastern edge is the most vertical part of the Swell, known as the San Rafael Reef (cross section). Aerial views of the southern (source) and northern Reef.  Because it's difficult to associate the layers with actual formations, I've included a series of photos with the layers labeled:

Near Mexican Bend
A note about the Chinle (pronounced "chin lee") formation: in the Swell it is composed of three members, from top to bottom: the slope of the Church Rock member, then the cliffs of the Moss Back member (over which the work "Chinle" above is written), then the slope of the Monitor Butte/Temple Mountain member. Note that the colorful Petrified Forest member of the Chinle is not present in the northern Swell. Most mines in the Swell are located at the bottom of the Moss Back cliffs. The Moenkopi is a ledgy layer, usually thin, below the broad slope of the Monitor Butte and Temple Mountain members. In the image above the thin Moenkopi layer actually starts at the bottom of the work "Moenkopi" and extends downward to the start of the yellow Sinbad layer. The uppermost hard layer of the Sinbad shows wonderfully-figured ripples, and can be seen as the stone around the fire pits in the Bridge Campground, or on the mesa tops nearby.

Mexican Mountain
The top of the yellow Sinbad layer is hard, and forms the cap rock of the Limestone and Jackass Benches. The reddish Moenkopi layer repeats below the Sinbad in some locations (actually, I think that the Sinbad is considered part of the Moenkopi group, so some books call it all Moenkopi). The Kaibab limestone is the base of the interior part of the Swell. The San Rafael cuts all the way through this layer only in the Black Boxes, where the underlying Coconino sandstone (same layer as the White Rim sandstone in Canyonlands National Park) is visible.

The Red Ledges
The Curtis formation has the appearance of concrete-like conglomerate in some locations. It protects the Dewey Bridge Member of the Entrada sandstone below from a great deal of weathering, such that the Entrada forms cliffs, unlike it's companion stone in Goblin Valley (note that the more famous Entrada sandstone is the Slick Rock Member, forming the spans in Arches NP). I'm not actually sure the layer I have identified as Carmel is that, but this is thinly layered soft stone, veined with gypsum deposits, having the same appearance of the upper part of the Summerville Formation. I think that is it Carmel (similar to the Crystal Creek member?), but formed into rare cliffs by the protective action of the Curtis. By the way, both the Entrada and the Curtis are named after locations in the northern San Rafael Swell. Together the Curtis, Entrada, and Carmel formations are known as the San Rafael Group. The Navajo formation is covered by the Carmel.

Cliffs above the San Rafael Bridge Campground (actually, down Mexican Mountain Road a mile)
The Buckhorn Wash and the Little Grand Canyon all show these layers. The Wedge is topped by some of the Carmel formation also. The Navajo forms rounded structures, with many cliffs. It is also very cross bedded. Below it is the Kayenta, a hard sandstone that forms cap rock on many free-standing Wingate buttes. Here it is a slope-forming layer, which is not quite visible from this vantage point. Below the Wingate is the ever-present Chinle layer. The soft cliffs are uppermost part of the Moenkopi, the Moody Canyon member it's called in Capitol Reef. By the way, this exposure almost mirrors the view of "The Castle" from the Capitol Reef visitors center. The Navajo, Kayenta, and Wingate formations comprise the Glen Canyon Group.

The cliffs around the Head of Sinbad are all Navajo. For reasons I don't understand the Cottonwood Wash road, as it goes from the Jackass Benches area to the Head of Sinbad, never seems to go past the cliffs that lie between the Kaibab and the Navajo. I've studied the geological maps, and can't figure it out.

The geology along the Castle Dale road is varied, but marked with signs. Just remember, the signs are standing directly atop the layer they announce. There are several places (the Red Knoll, for example) where you might think the sign is referring to something behind it. It isn't. Take care to note the Cedar Mountain formation and on. That's where the colorful Bentonite-like hills begin. The real color is in the Morrison formation which, like the Chinle, lacks the real colorful layers of the Brushy Basin member seen to the south, but here are still photogenic if you control the sun angle and saturation. By the way, it is in the Morrison formation that the dinosaur bones are found.

West Reef
The western Reef is dominated by the Navajo sandstone layer, best seen from the Coal Washes and the Eva Conover road. Underlying the Navajo is the Chinle formation, where the mines are concentrated. From the interior of the Swell you can see the Navajo, Chinle, and Moenkopi formations. Note that the Wingate and Kayenta seem to be missing entirely here.

Crypto

Please, please, please remember that if you venture off trail, you are responsible for both your own safety and the safety of the life your are stepping on. The most fundamental form of life in the desert southwest is called microbiotic, or cryptobiotic, soil. It is surface soil stabilized by a symbiotic colony of lichen (which is itself composed of fungus and algae) and bacteria. "Crypto", as it's known, is extraordinarily fragile, and one step will kill it for a decade. But it is the only thing that stabilizes and enriches the soil enough to allow anything else to grow, and must be preserved. If you do venture off trail, make very sure you can recognize patches of crytpo and make every effort to avoid treading on it. The safest plan: walk only on hard rock or in streambeds. Crypto is generally seen as a bumpy, dark patch of soil, but early formations of crypto lack the darker color of the old patches. You'll see crypto at all locations at the same level as the Wedge. I've not seem much below where limestone dominates.

Reference

Books

A short list of the most useful books and reference material concerning the Swell.

Utah's Scenic San Rafael, Owen McClenahan, 1986, self published.
 Mr. McClenahan was a fixture of the area. This is a description of a series of jeep explorations in the swell, with a lot of history thrown in. Mr. McClenahan's collection of fluorescent rocks is on display at the Museum of the San Rafael.

Hiking Utah's San Rafael Swell, Michael R. Kelsey, 1986, Michael R. Kelsey Publishing.
A description of many hikes in the Swell. Sometimes the descriptions are a bit wanting, and sometimes he goes places I'm pretty sure would be dangerous for most of us to follow. His hikes are way faster than I can do them. This book as a great historical introduction by Dee Anne Finken. Also includes informative geological cross sections.

Backcountry Adventures Utah, Peter Massey & Jeanne Wilson (no relation), 2002, Swagman Publishing.
This is the guide to driving the backcountry in Utah. Wonderful descriptions, maps, road logs, and even the history of towns and people of Utah. A must have if you are driving in Utah's deserts or mountains. The image on the cover is Mexican Mountain from the Swazy's Leap trail.

Utah Byways, Tony Huegel, 2000, Wilderness Press.
Another SUV touring book of Utah, but not as big nor detailed as the book above. I keep this in the glove box. The cover image is Mexican Mountain Road near Red Canyon.

Photographing the Southwest, Vol. 1, Laurent Martres, 2002, PhotoTripUSA.
Wonderful book on the Colorado Plateau. Includes a chapter on the Swell. Part of a series.

Utah Road & Recreation Atlas, 2002, Benchmark Maps.
Useless for desert navigation, but good for figuring out what you see from a high viewpoint, and for driving the paved roads.

Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey, 1968, Balantine Books
I first went to the Swell to find a place that is like Arches as Abbey describes it before it was paved and made a park.

National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers, Western region, revised ed., Richard Spellenberg, 2001, Chanticlear Press.
A great guide to the wildflowers abundant in May.

Geology of Utah's Parks and Monuments, Douglas A. Sprinkel, Sr. Ed., 2000, Utah Geological Association, Publication 28.
An outstanding reference volume on the geology of the national and state parks in Utah. It does not, however, have a chapter on the Swell. There is enough information on other parks (pay particular attention to the chapters on Capitol Reef and Goblin Valley) to figure out the Swell geology.

Maps

National Geographic/Trails Illustrated San Rafael Swell, Map 712.
TOPO! v3.3 Utah State Software, National Geographic.
San Rafael Motorized Route Designations, February 2003, BLM Price.

Links

SanRafaelSwell.org Run by a high-school buddy of mine, information and images of the entire Swell.
Emery County San Rafael Swell Castle Country
Self-guided tour of the San Rafael Swell
Emery County, Utah
Hike Index
San Rafael Swell
San Rafael Swell 4WD Trails
San Rafael Swell and Goblin Valley State Park
San Rafael Swell Study Utah Bureau of Land Management
SAN RAFAEL SWELL WILDERNESS
The Geology of the San Rafael Swell
Tom's Utah Canyoneering Guide - San Rafael Swell
Utah Rock Art Sites
Sinbad Desert Amateur Radio Club
San Rafael Swell Geology-BLM

Saturation

Film (and digital) Saturation

Controlling saturation is an exercise in controlling brightness and contrast. Color film, especially reversal film, responds to exposure changes by changing it's saturation. Underexpose and you get colors so rich they become very dark; overexpose and the colors become so light they bleach out. The trick to saturation (and this applies to digital shooters, too) is as follows:

ND Grads All parts of your image should have approximately the same exposure, so that any one part of the image is neither too light or too dark. This is why I used an  ND graduated filter in my Tropic, Utah shot, to bring the brightness of the sky down to match the rest of the slide. A neutral-density graduated filter is a filter that is half gray and half clear. It is used to darken only the sky in a shot, and leave the rest of the scene untouched. That way I could then bring out the colors of both the relatively bright sky and the backlit haze below. Without the ND grad the sky would be burned out with no color left, or the haze would be too dark to show any brightness at all. The ND grad is a rectangular filter, and is used in a special holder that allows for rotation of the filter and to slide the filter up and down so that the transition (a sharp edge for a hard grad and a gentle lightening for a soft grad) to match the horizon.

Polarizer You control specular reflections through the use of polarizing filters. Having highlight in your scene, especially a thousand little highlights all over the leaves, will bleach out the colors (a good portion of the light that comes from reflections is white instead of colored). A polarizing filter will block the reflections off plants and water so all the light that hits the film will be colored and your saturation improves a lot. You can also use polarizing filters to bring the brightness of the sky down to match the land at certain times of day (usually early morning and late afternoon, when the sun illuminates the sky head on but illuminates the land at an oblique angle). At noon, or at right angles to the sun the polarizer will introduce more problems than it solves, unless you are going for that high-contrast art look.

A Small peak in the Tetons An example of darkening the sky using the polarizer to overemphasize contrast.

Examples of overuse of the polarizer:

The polarizer is darkening the sky in these wide-angle shots more perpendicular to the sun.

Underexposure Overall exposure can make a difference. Any film saturates if slightly underexposed, so if you really want the colors, underexpose by a third or maybe half a stop. Negative film also responds to underexposure, but the end result usually isn't as dramatic as with reversal film. Instead, underexposure can be applied in printing the negative to get the enhanced saturation at the expense of overall brightness in the print. Speaking of printing your film, often you must try to strike a balance between the brightness of the print and the richness of the colors. Negative papers by Kodak and Fuji have been tending toward higher contrast and higher saturation, and if you have a color darkroom handy, you can select papers for printing that can either enhance saturation or desaturate the image, giving you the opportunity to fine-tune the saturation.

Skyline Arch and Juniper -1/3 stop exposure, pol.

Barn on Mormon Row, Teton N.P. -1/2 stop exposure, pol.

Films Chose a film known for saturating. Fujichrome Velvia, Kodak 100VS , Fuji Superia Reala, and others, are well known for the high saturation they deliver. Fuji's Astia, for example, is known as a non-saturating reversal film, so avoid it (and it's consumer sibling, Sensia) if you need color. All photos included in this article were shot on Velvia.

Overcast Light/Warming Filter The type of light illuminating a subject has a great affect on the saturation. Scenes lit by bright sunlight will look good to our eyes because they are so well lit, but your exposure will adjust the brightness to suit the film. It turn out that the best saturation of foliage is had by shooting on overcast days. The uniform lighting creates the best situation for maximizing saturation. The downside of shooting in overcast conditions has to do with the color of the light. Overcast light had a decided blue tint, and this must be corrected by using a warming filter (designated as 81A through 81E). The 81C filter is probably the best. It is an amber colored filter that compliments the blue of skylight, which will remove the blue of an overcast shot. Once the blue is removed, all colors in the scene become very vivid. The 81A filter is a light amber, providing little correction, and the 81E is a very deep amber, which usually over-corrects overcast lighting.

A Red Maple amid Aspen This shot demonstrates the sort of saturation Velvia produces when using a polarizer in sunlight.

A Red Maple amid Aspen 2 The same tree, this time shot on a cloudy day, no polarizer. Filtering was done digitally on the scan.

 

Film

Slides The main benefit of slides is that you see the actual film, so you know exactly what you have (with negatives you have to guess what the colors are until you print it). 90% of my shots are on slides.

Fujichrome Velvia 50 (RVP): I shoot this admirable film at ISO 40, and on rare occasions I shoot it at ISO 100 and push-develop it one stop. Great colors, overemphasized just enough to maintain reality. Very fine grain, will show up in Ilfochrome prints only at 16x magnification or higher. This is my main shooting film in the mountains and the prairies, and I'd use it all the time except for two occasions: then it's getting dark, and when there are people in the scene. Velvia has a knack of finding blemishes on skin and making people look ruddy and red.

Fujichrome Provia 100F (RDPIII): new stuff, and very nice. This has a chance of becoming my favorite film. Less saturated than Velvia, but twice as fast and okay for people. When I shoot events or activities, this is what I use. Very fine grain, doesn't show up even at 18x.

Fujichrome Astia: When I shoot people themselves, not people doing things, but close-ups of a face. I use this rarely.

Kodak Elite Chrome Extra Color: I don't like this. The color balance is just not real, even though it's as saturated as Velvia.

Negatives are usually sharper than slides (the reversal process is by its mature slightly blurry). Print beautifully, but scan horribly (on my scanner, at least).

Kodak 800 Max Zoom (the new formula): it's fun to shoot fast film; lose the tripod, extend the zoom and you still get sharp pics. Grainy, it's still sharp enough for 11x14's.

Kodak or Fuji ISO 100 film: generally the cheap stuff from the big store. As lousy as the film is, I can print it well because of all the adjustments I can make. Usually very sharp, all the sharpest prints I have are done using this.

Fuji NPS 160: for the fancy portrait shots, I don't use this much, not because it's not good film, but because I shoot so few portraits.

Fuji NHGII 800: the Fuji equivalent of 800 Max Zoom, only different. When I shoot a lot more of this I'll say how they differ.

Black & White B&W film doesn't really come in consumer and pro versions anymore. I find that Kodak is still the best for B&W negative film (there is only one B&W slide film, and I don't use it; I'd prefer to reverse TMax if I need slides).

Kodak TMax 100 (TMX): I like this film. There are complaints that the film is tricky to develop, bcause it is made to respond to processing differences. I find that using the Jobo processor negates this complaint for me. Fine grain, nice density range, and prints well on Polymax paper. Needs a lot of fixer to wash the pink dye out of the film.

Kodak Plus-X 125 (PX): This is an easier film to process, but it's grainier than TMX.

As you can see, I tend to use the professional slide film, but consumer negative film.

Film Codes. I've started to use codes to indicate what type of film is used for each photograph:

a unspecified E-6
b unspecfied B&W negative
c
d
e 
f Fujichrome Provia 100F RDPIII
g Kodak Supra
h Fuji NHGII color negative
i
j
k Kodachrome
l Fujichrome Multispeed 400
m Fujichrome Multispeed 100
n unspecified color negative
o Fujichrome Multispeed 200
p 
q Fujichrome Multispeed 1000
r Fuji Reala color negative
s Fuji Sensia II
t
u
v Fujichrome Velvia 40 RVP
w
x Kodak T-Max 100 TMX
y Kodak T-Max 400 TMY
z Kodak T-Max 1000 TMZ

Chemistries

Currently I use five different color chemistries. 

By way of background, I've had much experience with enzyme kinetics, which requires great control of temperatures and times, so I had an advantage over most who start color chemistry at home with being careful and planning ahead so that I never messed up timing a processing step.

E-6. I use the Kodak E-6 kit to process all my slides. It has become my primary chemistry. It's the second-trickiest process I use, but I've messed up only 4 rolls of film (when my tank broke open, but I managed to save the important shots) and a handfull of sheet film (usually when I put two sheets in the same slot). All my sheet and 120 film is processed at home, and most of my 135 is too. All pushed and pulled film is processed by me. Uses 240 mL of chemicals per step (for two rolls in a small tank) or 1L (for 18 sheets in a big tank). I can process 36 sheets per liter, or 8 rolls by reusing the chems once (and only once).

Processing instructions, 38 °C	Description	Timer setting (adjusted for 10 sec. drain)
Prewarm (dry)	Get the film and reels up to processing temp.	300 seconds
First Developer	Much like a B&W developer, develops exposed silver.	440 (550 if pushed one stop)
Rinse x4	Removes all developer which really messes up the color dev. step	20
Reversal Bath	Chemically "exposes" all the unexposed silver, and "inactivates" the already-developed silver	110
Color Developer	Develops the reversed (as we see it) image	230
Pre-bleach (conditioner)	Deactivates all developers, re-wets film	110
Bleach (Fe3+)	Dissolves the reversed image silver, which causes dye molecules near the silver to become colored. Dye molecules away from silver remain colorless	350
Fixer (SCN-)	Complexes (dissolves) all silver in the film so it won't turn black later	230
Rinse x6	Removes all remaining chemicals and dye	20
Stabilizer	A wetting solution to prevent water spots, and some antibacterial agent	60

I've had good luck processing Fujichrome RMS film (MultiSpeed 100/1000) with the following first developer times: ISO 100 = 450 sec (normal E-6 time), ISO 200 = 600 sec (10 min), ISO 400 = 800 sec (13 min), ISO 800 = 1100 sec (18 min), ISO 1000 = 1200 sec (20 min).

C-41. Color negative film. I've only used the Tental mono-C41 kit, and while it is easy (only two processing steps), I've found that the enlarger filter pack required was huge (95M 120Y), and might be the result of a bad processing step. More investigation required. Uses 240 mL chemicals per step. Chemicals can be resused.

Processing instructions, 38 °C	Description	Timer Settings (adjusted for 10 sec. drain)
Prewarm (dry)	Get film up to temp.	300
Developer	Much like a B&W developer	185
Blix (Bleach-Fix)	same as in E-6, only the bleach and fix are combined into the same solution	205
Rinse x6	wash out the chemicals	20
Stabilizer	A wetting solution to prevent water spots, and some antibacterial agent	60

RA-4. Using Kodak's replenisher chemicals (which require an extra starter chemical), the process is fast. I'm using the Fuji Crystal Archive paper, and the results are beautiful. With RA chemistry you can get papers of various contrasts, a necessity for getting the negative print just right. Printing the low contrast "P" paper is easier than the higher-contrast "C" paper, but I think the high-contrast look is better for the out-of-the-studio shots I tend to take. The sharpest prints I've made, and a very fast process. Uses 130 mL chemicals per step, rinses are 250 mL.

Processing instructions, 35 °C	Description	Timer Settings (adjusted for 10 sec. drain)
Prerinse (wet)	Get paper well wetted	30
Developer	Much like a B&W developer	50
Rinse	Wash out developer	20
Blix (Bleach-Fix)	same as in E-6, only the bleach and fix are combined into the same solution	50
Rinse x3	wash out the chemicals	20

P-30. Recently I've pretty much abandoned this process, as it is much more difficult to print than the R-3/R-3000 process detailed below. Used to process Ilfochrome Classic paper (was Cibachrome), this is the smelliest chemistry I have, and the most corrosive. The bleach is especially pungent, so have good ventilation. Easily the trickiest paper to print, plan on using many pages to get the exposure and filtration correct. Currently I use only the medium-contrast RC paper, but I'm going to get the low-contrast paper to see if I can fix some high-contrast problems (resulting from my use of high-contrast Velvia and Provia slide film). Uses 150 mL chemicals per step, rinses are 150 mL. Getting the color balance right is a real trick, and sometimes I'll spend the entire day in the darkroom trying to get one transparency to print correctly. Often skies with clouds are impossible to get right because of color crossover making the clouds an off-purple color, or if you fix the cloud color by filtrations the sky loses its blueness. And it's the most expensive chemistry out there.

Processing instructions, 30 °C	Description	Timer Settings (adjusted for 10 sec. drain)
Prerinse (wet)	Get paper well wetted	30
Developer	Much like a B&W developer	110
Rinse	Remove developer	20
Bleach	Unlike the Kodak processes, this bleach destroys dye molecules near the exposed silver	110
Fixer	Removes all silver	110
Rinse x3	Washes out all chemicals	20

R-3000. Kodak's process to print from slides. The Radiance III paper is as contrasty as Ilfochrome, but the process is cheaper and easier to use. I find that peoples faces are much easier to do than Ilfochrome, The greens are almost as intense, and blues are easier to saturate. The downside: it's not as sharp as Ilfochrome or RA-4. Uses 130 mL chemicals per step, rinses are 250 mL.

Processing instructions, 38 °C	Description	Timer Settings (adjusted for 10 sec. drain)
Prerinse (wet)	Get paper well wetted	30
First Developer	Much like a B&W developer	65
Wash x 4	Remove developer	20
Color Developer	Contains the reversal agent, exposes and develops the reversed image	230
Wash	Removes developer	30
Blix (Bleach-Fix)	same as in E-6, only the bleach and fix are combined into the same solution	110
Rinse x3	wash out the chemicals	20

I love the R-3 chemistry, in combination with Fuji's Type-35 paper. Wonderful stuff. I find that printing Velvia is a joy with this combination! Most of the time I can get most any transparency printed very well in two tries. There is a major problem, however: R-3000 is no longer being made. You can still get part of the chemicals from B&H photo/video, (as of January 2002) but they won't ship the color developer. Instead I have purchased the R-3 chemistry set, intended for pro labs using continuous- or roller-transport processors. The smallest R-3 set is for 12.5 gallons, but it's easy to deal with as only two components are subject to air oxidation: the 1st developer (which comes in a 4 gallon cubitainer, so if you buy a spigot you can dispense directly out of that without introducing air, so it should keep for at least a year with on-and-off usage) and Part B of the color developer (which I divide into smaller glass bottles for long-term storage; 150 ml will go into a gallon of working solution). I bought the R-3 set from Roger Newsham at International Supplies, 1-888-IMAGE-65 ext. 250 for about $350 delivered.

Here is how R-3 works: from the concentrates you make the replenishment solutions (the concentrates will make a total of 12.5 gallons of replenisher solution while the color developer set will make 25 gallons of replenisher), see table below. The replenishment solution is used for two things: making the beginning solution, and replenishing used solutions.
 

Replentisher Solution	water	Part A	Part B	Part C	Dilute to:
1st Developer	1/2 gal	1216 ml	-	-	1 gallon
Color Developer	1/2 gal	152	152	304	1 gallon
Bleach/Fix (blix)	1/2 gal	585	437	-	1 gallon

To make the working solutions, you need to use the replenisher plus a little bit of starter solution, used to add the chemicals that are normally added to the solutions by the emulsion itself during processing:
 

Working Solution	Replenisher	Starter	Dilute to:
1st Developer	995 ml	5 ml	1 L
Color Developer	800 ml	7.5 ml	1 L
Blix	1 L	-	1 L

The real advantage of using R-3 over R-3000 is replenishment. The chemistry is meant to be reused, as long as you add some of the replenishing solution to compensate for the amount of chemicals that are used during processing. You need to collect all the processing chemicals as they come out of the processor. To replenish these used solutions, use the table below. The replenishment volumes are adjusted for loss of potency after handling.
 

Working Solution	Used Solution	Replenisher	Total Volume
1st Developer	500 ml	500 ml	1 L
Color Developer	500 ml	500 ml	1 L
Blix	650 ml	350 ml	1 L

Thus, once the working solution is made, you can run a liter of chemicals through the machine but only use up 340/240 ml of your replenisher solution: you can process a whole lot with a 12.5 gal set (if you manage to process enough that you never have to remake the working solutions from starters, you can process 700 16x20" or 2800 8x10" prints!). I print 16x20's most of the time (it's so easy to print that I find hat doing test 8x10's isn't worth it).

Processing instructions, 38 °C	Description	Timer Settings (adjusted for 10 sec. drain)
Prerinse (wet)	Get paper well wetted	30
First Developer	Much like a B&W developer	65
Wash x 4	Remove developer	20
Reversal Exposure	Exposes the undeveloped silver	30
Color Developer	Develops the reversed image	230
Wash	Removes developer	30
Blix (Bleach-Fix)	same as in E-6, only the bleach and fix are combined into the same solution	110
Rinse x3	wash out the chemicals	20