In March, my son Conor had a chance to visit me during his annual school break during Easter. Unlike previous years, I decided to make a big camping trip through Utah's south east on the Colorado Plateau. I just visited Arches NP with my wife Robin just this past Christmas and was hoping to see things differently this trip including wild flowers. The wild flowers were not to be unfortunately. It was too early in the year. But, there was plenty of other stuff to shoot.

One of the great features of Arches NP is its proximity to Moab Utah, the home of nature photographer Tom Till. He has a relatively small but visually exciting gallery that's packed with images from the region. One of my favorites is his image of Turret Arch through the North Window at sunrise. The uniqueness of viewing a couple arches through each other attracted my eye. As I'm sure is the case for many photographers, I set out to make my own interpretation of this same image.

On the appointed morning at incredibly early o'clock, I woke, packed the truck, and made my way to the Windows view point. After getting out there, I navigated my way through the dark and arrived at North Window's opening. Looking across the small divide away from the Window, I spied a couple of small out-croppings large enough to support a person or two. I worked my way cautiously along the ledges and slick-rock, finally reaching my destination. The view was great, I was alone, the image was going to be awesome as soon as the warm morning sun would illuminate the arch.

As the sun began to rise and soon I heard echos of one... two... no, wait three more photographers making their way to my previously adequate for one but soon to be crowded for four perch. They scurried across the divide, much quicker than I since the light was much better, and made their way up to me. I was a bit dumbfounded. Here I was in this fairly remote location only to find three other photographers setting up their equipment practically in my lap. While waiting for the light, we all, my new found photographer friends and I, remarked at how unusual at such a large rich location as this that four photographers would choose the same place and practically the same tripod holes to test their skills. Little did I know how popular this location really was.

I went about the task of shooting the image. The sun eventually rose. I recorded the changing light and decided to focus on making the largest possible print I could which meant using a short telephoto lens with the intention of taking a series of images to eventually stitch together back at home. In this particular case, I used two rows of four images to complete a 12.5mp image with my Nikon D2h. The resulting image can easily be printed to 20x30 inches will outstanding clarity.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I was surprised to learn my supposedly remote location was far from it. Somehow, I missed how popular this location really was. Not only was it popular among nature photographers that morning, it was hi-lighted by Outdoor Photographer magazine as one of 15 "Hot Spots of the Pros". It was listed in the same breath as Tunnel View in Yosemite NP, which oh by the way, is incredibly famous. I guess you learn a new thing everyday and I sure did to find out my fairly unique image was nothing but a recomposition of many other's works. Oh well...

Regardless, I like this image. It's a memory marker for the many great experiences I had with Conor on that camping trip. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did making it.

Cheers

Tom Hill