Typically our first family camping trip of the year happens around my birthday in March but due to our already jam packed spring camping schedule Clint and I made a quick trip to the Moab area to celebrate the occasion. The plan was to make a quick cheap trip in the Camry to and shoot some star trails and do a bit of hiking.
We left Thursday after work and went directly to Island in the Sky with plans to shoot stat trails at False Kiva followed by a Mesa Arch sunrise. We grabbed the last site in the campground and drove out to the False Kiva trail head and began hiking just after sunset. We rushed down the trail and got the cameras setup just in time to catch the last trickle of day light. I forgot my flash in the car so I used my black diamond orbit lantern to illuminate the the Kiva and alcove and it worked out pretty well. We spent a few hours in the dark shooting then hiked out from False Kiva and drove back to our camp site. After setting up our tents we went for a walk to the green river overlook where it was so dark you couldn’t see anything but stars.
Friday morning we were up before sunrise and headed to Mesa Arch. To our delight only 8 or so other photographers there. I’ve heard at times it can be a real nightmare of people trying to capture this iconic shot so we were pretty lucky to have such a small crowd. (more…)
