I’m going to go ahead and confess up front that I don’t think I did this landscape justice.  I’m also going to confess that I really struggle with compositions in the desert some time.  Here in the east, it’s fairly easy.  There’s always some interesting flower, plant, or something to put in your foreground, in the American Southwest though, sometimes there’s just not – and on this particular morning, this was the best I could come up with!

While exploring around in Capital Reef National Park, I happened to notice the strange looking rock features (formations? …what do you even call those?) in the background of this image.  They can be seen from a number of places around the park, but I never could figure out how to get really close to them.  With all my searching around, I still don’t even know what they’re called, or if they have a name (I think the tallest one left of center is called the Golden Throne, but this particular vantage point is the backside of what you typically see.  In fact, if you look at last week’s Picture of the Week, the odd shaped features in the background are these from the other side… I *think*).  At any rate, when I discovered this particular spot I immediately pulled my car over to the side of the road and just stared at it.  I literally said out loud – to myself (I do that sometimes) – “This is the craziest landscape I’ve ever seen!”, and I honestly struggle to think of one as odd as this one.  Standing up on the hill where I shot this, it felt like I was looking out over Mars… or what I’d imagine Mars to look like.  

Can you tell from reading that that I still struggle to even put words to it?  THAT’S what I love about it.  You stand there and look at it, and you think, “I’m not even sure what that IS, but MAN that’s cool!”  I *really* want to go back.  🙂

More next week!

–Dan Thompson

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