491 - Sotol Vista
I don’t normally do three shoots in one day, but I think it finally hit me that we’re almost back in civilization. Our big road trip was coming to a close.
I’m honestly pretty surprised this photo came out as good as it did, because usually 4 hours of shooting in one day is my absolute maximum. After that my mind begins to melt and I just don’t care. Even the prettiest scenes will fade in front of my eyes.
It didn’t help that we also did sunset last night. Wait. I think that means I’ve done 4 shoots in the past 24 hours. Jesus Christ. Well folks we’re gonna take everything Big Bend National Park can give us and shove it down our throats.
This place is in the middle of nowhere. Literally- it’s at the very bottom of Texas, but not the part with cities like Corpus Cristi and San Antonio. Closest place is a small town called Marfa. Other than that nothing for hours. What I’m trying to say is if you want to come here, it’s a dedicated trip. Who knows when we’d be back.
Today’s shooting location was at an overlook called Sotol Vista. We were driving from Santa Elena Canyon and decided to Google best sunset places in Big Bend, and this place, ranked number 3, happened to be less than two minutes away from us. Which is a pretty massive coincidence when you realize the park is 1,200 square miles. It takes almost 90 minutes to drive across the entire park.
Either way, it was a blessing for our dreary minds. The photography gods were being kind to us, perhaps because we’d paid them so many respects today. To put the cherry on top, this place didn’t even involve a hike. We literally jumped out of the van and the view was there.
Here’s the photo I got:
“File Cabinet”
Taken on Sony a7rIII + Zeiss 24-70mm f/4
[ISO 250 ~ 54mm ~ f/4 ~ 1/2500]
(Want a Print? Get it here.)
Clean as fuck, and currently the wallpaper on my laptop.
One of my favorite editing tips I’ve learned is that if you’re going to blow out the sky, add a blur effect on it. Subtle, but it makes the sky just so creamy. Reduces that harshness of light. I also had a few natural sun beams leaking through in the shot, but decided to add a few more in Photoshop to really complete the scene. If you’re gonna have light flares, you should either own them or remove them completely. No half-assing them.
In terms of the composition here, I wanted to make the valley below the main focus of the shot, because the layers were so fascinating. Who would have thought. I tried a few other shots using cacti as the foreground, but my creative mind was too fried to make it work. Oh well. Like I said earlier, I’m surprised that one shot even turned out.
After that I slept the best I’ve slept in months. I was absolutely caked.
And that’s today’s adventure folks. Nice little shortie for ya. We got two more National Parks in New Mexico before we get back to Colorado. NEXT UP: Carlsbad Caverns. I got a shot of a mouse demon you’ll appreciate. Stay tuned.
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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