I just came back from a nice trip out west. Southwest to be exact. Southwestern region of Nevada, Arizona and primarily Southern Utah. Utah is ranked as the top states for photography by some lists because of all of the state and national parks like Zion and Bryce Canyon.
My wife has a conference in Las Vegas and then rented a car and headed out to The Valley of Fire state park in Nevada and on to Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Kodachrome Basin State Park and Cedar Breaks National Monument. All were fabulous and we enjoyed hiking around and taking in the amazing scenery.
But as a photographer who views a lot of images on daily basis, the challenge is always to find something new. I have hundreds of photographs I took on the trip where stood in the same well worn spots hundreds of thousands of other tourist stood. I probably put my tripod legs in holes made buy hundreds of other photographers.
I know for certain at Bryce Canyon that I was surrounded by hundreds of other photographers at the Bryce Overlook and woke up at 5:30 am to see the sunrise with at least 40 other people at Sunrise Point. All clicking away.
Now that I’m back processing my photos from the trip, I’m having a hard time motivating myself to dive into the hundreds of photos of the canyon that I took. First off, they most like will not look much different than the other photos I’ve seen of Bryce. And second, who wants to search though hundreds of similar images to find the best ones?
I find myself drawn to the quirky, off the beaten path photographs I took on the trip. Photos that might only have one shot. Things that other people miss on the way to the overlooks.
Like this old air pump at a decommissioned old gas station at Bryce. I found this by chance as we looked for the General Store to grab a sandwich for a picnic on the way out of the park.
“The Utah Parks Company Service Station in Bryce Canyon National Park was built in 1947 to serve automobile-borne visitors to the park. The service station was designed for the Utah Parks Company by architect Ambrose Spence in a style that was sympathetic to the prevailing National Park Service Rustic style, but was much simpler and more modern in character. In this manner, it foreshadowed the consciously simplified designs developed during the Mission 66 project.”
After all, let’s face it. Amazing scenery like that found at Bryce Canyon National Park just makes it too easy. Just about any visitor armed with a camera or cell phone can take photographs of the awe inspiring world class scenery. It takes a keen eye to find some new takes in areas photographed to death.