I had a super productive road trip to Canyonlands and Arches National Parks a couple years ago. Somehow I found myself in the mostly right places at the mostly right times over and over again during the trip. It was awesome! It was also a really nice break from triathlon training, wedding photography, and portrait photography. Road trips spark joy in me.

A little while ago I did a post about being at the Soda Springs Canyon overlook during sunset and doing little more that sit on a rock and point the camera into the canyon for some pictures.

This picture happened a little while later in the same spot. I got curious to see what might happen if the 70-200mm lens was pointed right into the sun at last light. I visualized a moody, high contrast, dark shadows, with sunbeams picture.

What do you know? That’s what I got.

Would I spend money to make a print and take up valuable wall space to hang this onto? Maybe?

Visualizing pictures and then experimenting to see what might happen is the key to this picture and why it’s important to me. Sometimes a person needs to try ideas. With digital cameras trying ideas isn’t nearly as expensive as during the age of film. Fuji Velvia would’ve failed miserably at this picture even with neutral graduated density filters in front of the lens. The contrast is too high. The cost in dollars of failure too high to even attempt this kind picture. Digital cheaply expands the idea envelope for a creative person.

Does it work all the time? No. Does it inform a person of the next time this might happen but better? Yes.