Solo Camping Photography in the American Southwest Monument Valley Arches National Park

Good morning, everybody, from a very, very cold Monument Valley this morning. Good morning, girl. So I got to the campsite I was staying at pretty late, so the guy came out a little suspect, but we squared everything away, and I thought I'd head out super early from where I was, but he let me know of a short little hike that you can take just out of the campground here, and I figured this was a good opportunity to take him up on that as Monument Valley becomes bathed in morning light behind me. All around me, I guess. Oh, okay. I got more than I bargained for. I have the lovely conundrum of everywhere I look being incredible, and how do you choose? Okay, well, the first thing I want to do is these massive monuments, and to do that, I need to sneak behind a little bit here, and a really beautiful morning glow is coming through the valley right now. As much as I love this plateau in the distance being bathed by morning light, I think I'm going to turn my attention to a composition here with these two bushes as a foreground element as the sun starts bathing this plateau. It's currently being blocked by this other beautiful massive plateau, but I think over time, this should all come into the light here, and I'll wait for that and frame something up from there. You know, I'm not sure. I'm not sure if I'm in love with the center composition, but I think those two bushes, because they are bathing in light, that I think there's something there for sure. So, I'll try center composition. Not sure how I feel about it right now, but so it goes sometimes. Sometimes you do not know. Isn't that exciting? I have to swing over just a little bit here, right over this incredibly sharp cactus. I think having them off to the side a little bit is going to be a little better to use the rule of thirds a bit more for them, as I am right now, for instance. There would be my head, and there would be the thing. Anyways, I'll try this one just because you never know, but more and more light is cascading over the rest of the valley, and it is stunning. So, I'm shooting at about f8 as I like to do. Now that I'm on a tripod, I can go back to ISO 100 and lock in an image. Once we dial in the polarizer, beautiful. That is an incredible example. Here, I'll even record on this camera for you. That is an incredible example of what polarization can do. This is with very little. As I rotate, all these colors and reflections are washed away, and all the colors come back. Really amazing, and there we go, and now I'll attempt that other composition I was talking about. Where do I need to be? Right about there. I'm going to see if I can block out some of the homes and such using the tripod. I need to get pretty low, but that's okay, and just shimmy it down so that I am covering a lot of the homes that are down there. If I need to spot out one or two, I don't think there's an issue with that, but let me know what you think. Hi, puppy. Smell that? That's the smell of instant coffee in the morning. So, I'm a little torn between going straight up to Moab and starting with arches, because I'd like to see as many of the Utah National Parks as I can, but I considered doing the Monument Valley Loop and hiring a tour and everything like that, but I am thinking about doing Valley of the Gods, because there will be a little bit more leniency for me to record and stop and everything like that, and it is free, which is a bonus, of course, too. So, I have Valley of the Gods set right now for about 20 minutes away for that entrance, and we'll see what I decide over the next block of time. Well, I just did a walk of it. It's pretty packed down still, and I do have a tool. I have some methods to get out of situations if I need to. So, let's go for it. Gonna sneak on through. Oh, oh, that's easy. Easy. Easy for the Ionic. All right. Even though I would like to do this drive, and I'm sure it's beautiful, in terms of photography, I'm looking out at the landscape behind me here, and I don't think there's value in it right now. I'm sure it's a beautiful drive with incredible stuff, but I don't want to get burnt out. I don't want to get beauty burnout, as it were, from everything from this morning, and photographically, the sun is pretty high in the sky, even though it's January 20th. I'm surprised by the flatness of everything. So, I'm just not sure. Let me know in the comments if I'm making a horrible error, but I think we are going to move on to Moab and do Arches National Park today, and while I am pretty proud of my little Ionic so far, 17 miles of super bumpy roads sounds less than ideal. So, we'll keep what it's designed for, which is good gas mileage on the highway. Freaking traffic ticket in Moab. To be fair, I was speeding, but that stresses me out, man. It's, uh, that's tough to come back from. I'm stressing over a traffic ticket. In my defense, they are very wide roads, and 30 miles an hour does not seem It feels illegally slow, but anyways, it just stresses me out. You know, I'm surrounded by these beautiful canyons, and now I'm thinking about a traffic ticket, but we'll pay it in five days, and the officer was very generous to bring it down to five miles an hour over. So, a small ticket, and let's see if we can change the course of the evening in Arches National Park. All right, well, as expected, there's a lot of people at these parks, even in the winter, even in January. So, I'm at the Double Arch Trail right now. I'm gonna bang on up there and, uh, take some photos, maybe the wide angle with the Nikon, and I'll see if I can get to one of the trails that's about two miles. Problem is, I'm running out of time. Apparently, the park closes at 4 30, which I think means be in your vehicle by 4 30. Uh, so I have about two hours total from now, so we'll see. Well, I'll take you along with the phone anyways. That's always an option. I just didn't want to be that guy with two honking cameras, two tripods, getting everyone's way, and setting up shots, and everything like that. This will be a bit easier. Just spoke with a nice man named Ron, who, uh, told me about some places that I missed. Goblin Valley State Park, Gooseneck State Park, and, uh, sounds like he's been around a lot. It was tough to feel like I was being held up, but very friendly guy. But, uh, with that said, we have approached the two arches. Did a bit of scrambling to get up to this point. Nice fall below, and a pretty insane view from here, and, uh, very fortunate that I do have the wide angle today. Our buddy Ron said that, uh, no one was at the Delicate Arch, uh, but there are, in fact, very many people in the parking lot and mulling about, so this is not the quality that, uh, I want for the channel, but I'm just gonna keep trucking on my phone, and I'm running out of time a bit, but I want to take you guys along forward as well. Two things. I have seen two newborn babies, bootcut jeans, memaws, and, uh, they're all going as predictably slow as you might expect, so I seem to have forgotten that I'm in a public place, and, uh, maybe the rules are a bit more lax here. Number two, I still have my long johns on underneath these pants, and I am cooking. So, which is interesting, because I actually regret not bringing the tripod in the Sony, but if we can get to 1500 subscribers, then I promise I will never shoot an extended sequence on my phone again. So, if you like the content, regardless of the very casual vlog style that it is now, I hope to do more of what you saw this morning at Monument Valley, and if you want to support that mission, please consider hitting the subscribe button below. All right, let's keep going. If I can find a rock or a bush to take off the long johns, I'm going, all right, I'm gonna do it. I think the trail goes that way. I'm gonna hide in this gulch and change. All right, that was beautiful. Stayed for about an hour. As you can tell, the sun is setting in Arches National Park. People kept coming and coming, so I guess the rule is closing means, uh, the fee entrance closes at 4 30. News to me now, but, uh, very beautiful. Got some photos that everyone has seen 10 million times, but some of which, uh, now have the privilege of saying are mine. So, thank you for joining me, if you have all the way, and, uh, tomorrow, for me, and next episode for you, I think we'll be doing some backpacking in the canyonlands. So, some good peace and quiet out in the wild, I think. Thank you very much, and I'll see you guys in the next one.