After several days of long days and somewhat tiring shoots, the organizers wisely built in a rest day with an optional shoot in the evening. The day started with a leisurely check out from our hotel, and again moving our base of operations to a hotel in Moab. Moab seems to be a bit of a free spirit town out in the middle of Utah. After checking into the hotel, we went to lunch at an interesting Moab restaurant. Not knowing when I might get the chance to see this part of the country again, I elected not to take a rest break in the afternoon, but rather to go on a driving tour around Moab that ended up at Dead Horse Point State Park. This had some spectacular vistas 2000 feet over canyons carved by the Colorado river. After our tour we headed back to the hotel, but because of the time we really had no break before leaving for the “optional” shoot in the evening.
Even though it was optional, everybody signed up for the shoot which was at an interesting rock formation known as Looking Glass Arch. This was an interesting red rock hill rising out of the desert, with a hole at the top forming an arch. As we got there near sunset, we got another, more serious warning, about keeping our eyes out for rattlesnakes in the brush around the base of the rock. (Upon later reading about the site, there were strong warnings about nests of rattlesnakes, and big rattlesnakes, so I’m kind of glad I didn’t read that before we went there as I would probably have been pretty nervous.) Anoush and I did a lot of shooting there, starting at the bottom while the sun was still up, going around to the backside to get some shade to shoot in. We also did some interesting shots with her wearing a green dress and spinning with the sun coming through. As the sun went down, we made our way up to the arch and took some additional pictures there. While I climbed around pretty gingerly, Anoush and the other models seemed to scurry up and down the fairly steep rock face like mountain goats, even though just wearing flip-flops. This was a pretty cool shoot.
After the sun set, Dasha suggested doing a “fire shoot.” We weren’t really alone there, as there was another group apparently filming some video for what I later learned was a paraphernalia company’s product. They had started a bonfire at the base, so we did some shooting of the models around the fire using just the firelight for illumination. The video folks we’re getting into the act as well and our models seemed pretty chill about the whole thing. Ultimately we headed back to Moab, stopping for a late dinner in town before ultimately getting back to the hotel. Another very fun day even though I didn’t get too much rest.