490 - Santa Elena Canyon
Today I felt like I was on acid as I explored one of the most famous places in Big Bend National Park- Santa Elena Canyon. I’m not joking. This photo I got will rock your world.
The shtick of this place is that it’s a massive canyon filled by none other than the Rio Grande River itself. Except on the day we decided to go, it was nice and calm- to the point where I became physically attracted to its reflection.
It all started in the wee hours of the morning, in fact, just a few hours after the sunrise of my last adventure. The thing about canyons is that you never really know what the lighting will be like until you show up. It's always a wildcard. One thing is for sure though, you almost never want to be in one directly at sunrise. It’s simply too dark.
Thus, we showed up around 9AM (three hours after sunrise) and hoped for the best. The shoot turned out… Interesting. I think I’m going to need to get used to “Winter” up here in the USA. Coming from tropical climates the past couple months, literally everything looks dead up here. Especially in the desert.
Naturally, I was having a problem finding color today- a key component in my compositions of the past couple months. To start, I figured I’d follow the river closely, even if it meant veering off trail. (Down here they don’t care if you go off trail… It’s a fucking desert.) Water meant life, and I assumed if I stuck close enough to it, I might just find something that pops. I waded through mud and branches for about ¼ mile, only to find myself coming on a sketchy cliffside full of cacti.
I knew it.
As I started to scale the cliff, I realized that it might not be such a good idea after all. My recovering broken foot wasn’t exactly “enjoying” the fierce angles I was putting it through.
But before I knew it, I was halfway up the cliff, and setting up compositions that made my stomach sink. The rock here was so crumbly that if I took one little slip, I’d probably fall off a 20-30 foot ledge. My broken foot would make a few friends.
In a surprising turn of judgment, I opted to avoid the risk. Normally I’d be 1000% down for a calculated risk like this, but after going through what I just went through the past couple months with my foot, I couldn’t stomach it.
As I left behind a couple of crazy cacti, I realized this might be what it’s like to be an adult. Responsible decisions, Intricate. Responsible decisions.
Since I didn’t want to go back the way I came, I decided to scale the slippery cliff to the actual trail. When I got to the top a lady looked at me like I’d just climbed Everest.
And then boom. It’s like nothing ever happened. We were back on the normal path, and decided to see it through to its end like normal tourists. Except we weren’t normal. I needed a goddamn picture of this dead canyon. A beautiful one at that.
Nothing sparked my interest the rest of the way. Until the end.
The water all met up and cast a silky reflection I could lust over. It was in full frame glory, with a trippy-ass rock wall to match.
Here’s the photo I got:
“Cross Eyed”
Taken on Sony a7rIII + Tamron 17-28mm f/2.8
[ISO 250 ~ 23mm ~ f/9 ~ 1/125s]
(Want a Print? Get it here.)
Hot damn that one’s fresh off the oven. It’s like your eyes want to pull you to the right, but the rock in the dead center anchors you there. I almost feel cross-eyed looking at it. Cool.
This is an experimental composition concept I’ve been playing with- pulling the eyes in different directions, intentionally. Most common theory says your eye is supposed to follow one path through the photo- but what if I wanted to make you dizzy?
I think this kind of effect only works if the image is barebones minimal. Too much other stuff in the frame and it loses its effect, and simply begins to look unprofessional.
That’s the one photo I got. I tried aiming up for some bigger shots of the full canyon, but it just didn’t look clean enough for me- and the lighting was off. Like I’ve said in previous blog posts, I’m not going to post an amateur image here just to give context to a scene. I only post good shit here. If you want to see what the full canyon looks like, you can Google it without much effort.
Thus, we called it a day after that little banger. Nice little intimate shoot for ya, featuring the stillness of water.
Alright. I’m going to take a nap. Two shoots before noon will do that to ya. BYE.
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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