Arches national Park is a red-rock wonderland in Southern Utah. The park has over 2,000 natural stone arches, in addition to hundreds of soaring pinnacles, massive fins and giant balanced rocks.

The “Windows Section” of the park is the most popular area., You will not be alone in this section of the park except perhaps at 3:00 AM and not even then if there are night photographers.

Feature Image Details

This is a panoramic image. I used six different images blended together in Lightroom.

For this set of images I used a Canon 16-35MM F4 L Lens.

If I had to pick one lens and one lens only, this lens would be at the top of the list. I see things from a wide angle perspective.

The images are all ISO 200, at 17MM, F16, for 1/50th second.

Vision and Timing

Ignoring the panoramic blending the hardest part of this image is being where you need to be at the right time.

This is a classic shot, and to pull it off you need to be in the right place.

1. Walk through the North Window, resisting the temptation to photograph the sunrise.
2. Scramble up the rocks on the other side to frame Turret Arch
3. Be there early enough to get a good spot
4. Pray for good light and clouds

Points 1-3 are within your control. Point 4 isn’t. I went to this spot on at least 6 times on at least four trips with one success, my last one.

Without clouds, you are starting off with a questionable picture, With too many clouds you might get dull grey.

In regards to point 3, I was at the spot I wanted to be at least 40 minutes before sunrise.

I was too late. One person beat me to the one and only spot one can take this complete panorama sequence. He was from Germany.

The odd thing is, he had the only spot to take a panorama, but he was taking a close up that included no sky. This is a good idea with poor clouds, but a poor idea with good clouds.

I got the shot bu being patient. When the sun hit, a bit after sunrise, I asked my German fellow if he would move his tripod to allow me to complete my pano sequence.

He gave me 30 seconds. The image below is the result. I cropped the result for the lead image.

Full Pano Image

One Vertical Frame

That is one vertical frame in my sequence.

Interestingly, I frequently take vertical images to make what looks like a horizontal image.

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More Arches images coming up.

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Mike “Mish” Shedlock