Dachs Thoughts

Our last full day of the tour turned out to be a long one. We got up early and headed to Professor Valley, the location used by the TV series Westworld. There were classic western monoliths in the distance, and the landscape provided lots of trees and brush and patterned mud. This provided a lot of picturesque backdrops for shooting as well as a variety of natural environments.

I started the shoot by working with Kate Snig, who is great at finding interesting backgrounds to shoot against, and does amazing poses. As we moved further along the trail, I switched off shooting the various models, and we finally ended up working around a big rock monolith with all four of the models. I think everyone sensed we were getting the the end of the tour and tried to take as much advantage of what we had available. The models even did some fun shots posing with cameras and appearing to take pictures of each other.

After finishing the shoot, we returned to Moab and checked out of the hotel. After that, we ordered take out for dinner from the restaurant we’d had lunch at the previous day, then we had lunch at a food truck famous for their Quesadillas, allegedly the best restaurant in Moab. It was good, but not being an expert on Quesadillas I’m not sure how I’d rate it. After lunch we began to head back towards Salt Lake City, with one planned shoot midway in 9 Mile Canyon.

Our navigation got a miscue so we ended up taking a bit of a long detour, finally ending up correctly in 9 mile canyon. Driving along it, I wasn’t quite sure how good the shooting location would be, but we finally ended up at a little stop right near the road that had some cool ancient petroglyphs along a wall, with some beautiful green growth on the land is surrounded. It had rained a little before we got there, so the clouds provided some good light for portraits and some dramatic skies. I was able to get some interesting shots which was a bit of a surprise after a long drive without high expectations of something interesting.

We quickly chowed down on our dinner, some eating in the van, as we were a bit late and were making our way back to Salt Lake City. We got back to the hotel we had started with near midnight with a fairly early call for our last shoot of the tour.

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.

The day started early as we left the hotel to go to Crack Canyon, the second of the slot canyons on our tour. After another ride over a pretty bumpy road we arrived at the trailhead. The hike in was the most challenging of the trip, and while in actuality it wasn’t that far, there was lots of up and down. It took us about 45 min to get into the start of the canyon. It was again a beautiful area, and the canyon itself was a bit wider that the previous day’s Leprechaun Canyon, and as we worked our way in, the geology changed along the way offering lots of interesting photographic opportunities. In particular, the walls had lots of variety of texture including different patterns of nooks and crannies, and the models seemed fearless climbing up and using them in posing, around them and in them. I again had an opportunity to shoot a while with Dasha and got some nice shots. We were also able to work with the models as a group getting some very cool shots as they climbed up into the patterned rocks. Shooting for a couple of hours takes some energy, and we had worked our way a ways into the canyon, so when time came to leave it was a bit of a slog getting back to the van, particularly as it has started to warm up quite a bit.

We headed back to Green River to have lunch in a restaurant there and grab some take-out to have later for dinner. Mid-afternoon, we left again for the San Rafael Swell and our next shooting location. Along the way (I think we were traveling the Buckhorn Draw), we saw a nice prairie setting with some dramatic clouds before a storm, so we all got out and did some shooting. A little further along the road we came upon the Buckhorn Wash Pictograph Panel, a site that contained some ancient pictographs thought to be created by the Barrier Canyon Culture as long as 2000 years or more older. We made a quick stop to look and take some pictures, then we headed to our final shooting destination, the Wedge Overlook. This was another beautiful vista overlooking a valley, known as “the Little Grand Canyon” of the San Rafael River. Before we could get out of the van, we got a bit of an afternoon shower so we hung tight for a bit. After the rain ended we got out, and the models braved the cold wet ground to crawl around and pose on rocks. This site was similar to the previous evening, but provided some variety landscape along the edge and some ability to climb down a bit to get some different perspectives. This also helped as there were more folks around here which made shooting with nude models a little more challenging. I got some really interesting shots including some of Kate Snig posing up in the branches of a dead tree right on the edge of the cliff. I was also able to get some nice shots after the sun set during the blue hour.

After shooting, we had our dinner there on a picnic table, but we didn’t hang around too long as it was dark and getting a bit cold. We then headed back to Green River and the hotel, arriving fairly late. All in all a very fun, but tiring day.

The second day of our adventure stated early with a move of our base of operations to a hotel in Green River, UT, about 3 hours SE of Salt Lake City. After checking in, we grabbed some lunch to go and headed south near Hanksville to Leprechaun Canyon, the first of our two slot canyons on this tour.

After a relatively short hike through what turned out to be a dry brush covered river bed, and a gentle reminder to keep an eye out for rattlesnakes, we got to the canyon. Humorously, the group actually took a slight wrong turn when our leader circled back behind us for a bit, and we were all jamming ourselves into a crack that was getting tighter and tighter, not realizing that wasn’t the canyon.

After getting things sorted out, we neared the canyon. There was a large boulder, and the models started working and climbing. People got so enthralled with those shots that Dasha had to kind of nudge people along so we would actually get into the canyon itself. The geology and landscape is beautiful with beautiful red rocks carved straight down into a narrow canyon, at times so tight one person could barely pass. This provided an opportunity to take some great shots, and the models really knew now to take advantage of the backdrops. I got to shoot all the models at this location, and got some particularly nice shots with Dasha.

We spent a couple of hours shooting in the canyon, then headed back to the van and traveled to our second shooting location of the day, Burr Point. This took us over the first of many bumpy dirt roads leading to a beautiful overlook of the Dirty Devil River Box Canyon. We got there a bit before sundown, so we were able to get some nice golden hour light. It was challenging to shoot in the setting sun as the canyon edge threw shadows onto the landscape. But it was a beautiful overlook.

After the shoot, we headed to Hanksville for a late dinner at Duke’s SlickRock Grill, and John Wayne themed restaurant. I had some rainbow trout, and then we made it back to our hotel fairly late to get some rest.

In mid-May, after I’d had about 3 1/2 months to settle into my retirement, I spent an amazing week in Utah with UTadventure, traveling to beautiful scenic sites with a team of very talented fine-art models. I finally got to see some of the amazing geography and geology of Utah that I’ve heard about for many years but had never seen in my commutes straight across the state, or in and out of Salt Lake City. I also got some wonderful opportunities to shoot lots of pictures, and to collaborate with some creative art inspired people.I shot more than 5000 pictures, so I’m going to have lots of fun work ahead of me going through them and fine tuning the results.

I flew in a day early to get settled, and Uber’ed myself into downtown Salt Lake City to have dinner at a restaurant I enjoyed when I used to visit SLC for work at the University. The first day of the tour started the next day with a get together lunch followed by a sunset shoot in the sand dunes of Little Sahara Recreation Area (BLM land). It was kind of amazing to see these sand dunes suddenly appear in the midst of what seemed like otherwise flat semi-green Utah desert. It was also my first chance to experience photographing art models nude in nature. This generally went quite smooth throughout the trip, with the tour leader Dmitriy keeping us pretty much away from the public and keeping models aware of members of the public that might be wandering near so that they could cover up. The models were great to work with, with seeming boundless energy and creativity. We shot till dark (or a little past into the blue hour). After that we had a little picnic with some sandwiches we’d grabbed a lunch, then we headed back to the hotel in SLC. This gave us our first hint of a lot of hours in the van each day, but it was a good first day.