West of Moab

I thought it might be interesting to toss out a slightly different desert view.

We were on our way from Montrose, CO to Santa Rosa in our Bonanza. It was six years ago and I don’t remember why I didn’t have Ted circle more and try to do some more serious landscapes, but looking at the shutter speed, a likely reason was turbulence, which can make aerial shooting a waste of time. And the curved plexiglas windows can be like shooting through the bottom of a Coke bottle. (I’m dating myself – remember those??) But some of the views were too nice to pass up and this one came out reasonably sharp. It may be near Hanksville.

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Technical Details

Is this a composite: No
Canon 7D2, Canon 100-400 II at 135mm, ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/5000 sec. Slight crop from top and left to 70% of the full frame. Very slight adjustments from the raw file, mostly a slight curves boost.

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Diane, this is a fine aerial view of this area. The branched drainage area does a good job of leading into the ridges at the top. While this looks good as presented, I think a bit more contrast (especially darkened dark tones) in the lower half might work well. I don’t suppose flying around looking for photos is high on your to do list, but this could also be special with some early or late light casting long shadows.