Looking from Dead Horse Point State Park into the Island in the Sky portion of Canyonlands National Park. Everything is in the image is in focus from approximately 4 or 5 feet to approximately 35 or more miles.
This is part of a series of images taken in a month long trip to Utah in 1995. The thumbnail of the image can not do it justice due to the amount of information and the scope of the size and distance recorded in the image.
The image is taken from Dead Horse Point State Park into the Island in the Sky portion of Canyonlands near Moab, Utah. 3 photographers, including myself had climbed below the overlook to this ledge, the edge of which can be seen approximately 1/3 of the way into the image. Beyond the ledge was probably a drop of perhaps 1000 feet to the white rim. I had taken a whole series of photos from before sunrise till about 9 AM using an assortment of lenses. Unfortunately focusing on the Ground Glass at or before Sunrise with an f6.8 90mm lens can be troublesome and though my images with the beautiful light could be printed to 16" x 20", I could see under a loop that the transparencies were slightly out of focus.
This image was taken about 8:30AM. I am not accustomed to using a polarizer at this time of day but it was needed. I used a Tiffen 812 to warm up the image a little returning the color to approximate the scene. Due to an infinite number of planes, I could not use the tilts on the camea to increase depth of field; I was forced to stop the lens down to f32 to maintain focus from the foreground to the background.
The image shows the sweep of the Colorado river and contrasts the largely barren rock (much of it reddish sandstone) with just a bit of vegetation in the foreground (including the one small yellow spike of flowers to the lower left) and the vegetation hugging the shore of the river. Additionally, the reddish rock contrasts against the strong deep blue sky.
Though not visible on the monitor, the texture of the rock and pebbles in the foreground and the boulders and rocks that have fallen toward the river and throughout the image can be seen very clearly in the actual photographs.
In the printed form and in particular, when this powerful image reaches 24" x 30" and larger the image is very impressive. When it gets to this size, the scope and size allows the viewer to get the feeling that they are standing here at the time of the execution of the image. This image always gets a remarkable reaction at Art shows, particularly in its placement and particularly when displayed in Museum Glass. This has become my second most successful photograph and can print to just about any size necassary (the transparency is sharp under a 10X loop).
I've been to this spot myself, with all the wind, it isn't an easy spot to photograph from. But, you did a good job. You are right, big prints make a big difference - I have one print at a gallery that is 30x40 and it never fails to elicit comments (but, I haven't sold it yet).
Actually to keep printing on the Chromira I keep the size to 30" x 37" so that we do not take a big hit in cost by switching from the in-house Chromira to the contracted Light Jet. I have sold 2 of this image in that size already. 2 more are sitting in the tube with all the boards cut and mat windows, frames prepared, etc. When I get around to it, I will have to run up to my friend who is a custom framer to help me frame these. When we get images that are that large I switch over to Cyro Acrylic. It is a scratch resistant UV protective plexiglass available in 4' x 8' sheets. It is expensive and is a bit of a dust magnet due to static, but it is half the weight of the glass. The finished outer dimensions of these including the frames are 42" x 50". I do not like handling glass larger than 30" x 40" if it can be avoided.
A really nice image from my stomping ground. A shot like this is more difficult than ever these days, as much of the time now there is just enough polution haze to show in a shot.