Great Gallery, Utah

[noflashlight]

I took this photo a few years back. Still one of my favorites from a trip to the desert near Hanksville, Utah, because I had a wild idea for an image and it actually turned out.

I left from Colorado's Western Slope early on Saturday, arrived at the trailhead for Horseshoe Canyon (formerly "Barrier Canyon") in the late afternoon, picked a place to camp, got my gear together and decided to hike quickly to the Great Gallery and check the evening light. I was planning on putting together an early morning shoot, so I wanted to know how long it would take to get to the site and which way the main panel was facing.

The hike into the rock art site is beautiful and traverses down light colored slickrock sandstone before hitting a long sand slope and the canyon bottom. The canyon itself is full of Cottonwood and has running water in spots. Rock art sites appear soon after the canyon floor is reached--there were only a few people at the trailhead when I left and I passed one person hiking out, so the canyon was really quiet and I had the place to myself. When I arrived at the main site the sun was just starting to set.

The light was perfect. I set up my tripod and shot almost three hundred images. I had to work fast because the light was changing quickly and it was hard to tell what it would do in the narrow canyon. When I was done the sun was gone and I pretty much jogged the whole way out. I have to admit it felt kind of spooky down there alone.

When I topped out at the trailhead the wind had picked up--I slept outside and tried to hide from the wind by bungy-cording a tarp to the informational kiosk and using it as a wind-break. The next day I got up early and left. I felt like I had my images, and I didn't have much room left on my single compactflash card anyway.

I was really into HDR back then, and wanted to try a couple HDR 360 degree panoramas. You can see this image and one of the original 360 degree images at my website GregAitkenheadPhotography.com--I think the vertical pano is intriguing because the canyon wall across from the main rock art site ends up being upside down in the photo which kind of accentuates the other-worldliness of the place. I didn't like the way the horizontal pano turned out, so I cropped it down into the shot that you see above.

I remember processing all of the exposures down into tonemapped HDRs and wondering if the panoramas would even work. I had used a home-made rig which put the focal point of the wide angle lens I was using at the middle of the tripod head, but I still didn't know if anything I shot would work the way I imagined the image should look as I drove out to the desert. But I like the way these images turned out.

I've got a few days off coming up and I'm looking forward to heading out to the Utah desert again to photograph more rock art. I've traded out my D70 for a D3100, so I'm excited about improving on the shots of the past and trying again to capture the beauty of these incredible places. Hope you like the image. Thanks for having a look.

[Glayva]

Hi Greg
Lovely shot with great impact. Thanks for sharing.

[Krusty79]

Cool shot. It must have been eerie being there by yourself. I remember seeing the sign for Hanksville on my recent trip to Zion/Bryce/Capitol Reef/Arches national parks.

That looks like a great place to visit. I'll have to remember that when I get a chance to go back. We also noticed a sign for Goblin Vally State Park and wanted to stop, but we didn't have time.

[thebucch]

Awesome shot was this done in HDR. nice contrasting colors and foreground interest

[bmayfield]

These are beautiful. I checked out the gallery and the vertical pano is very unique. I love it. Now I want to take a trip out there!

[noflashlight]

Thanks all for your comments. The Great Gallery is one of those places in the desert southwest that I could visit over and over again. The dirt road drive and the mandatory hike in (and the fact that its located in a National Park, and the fact that the panel's location is beautiful) facilitates a sense of wonder that's hard to find at other public access rock art sites. I'm reading Craig Childs' "Finders Keepers" right now. He used a term I'd never heard before, "historicity," to describe an object or place that has a rich, palpable depth of historic authenticity. The great gallery's got historicity in spades.