Continuing on my theme from last week, this week’s Picture of the Week is another photo essay from our time in Utah.  This week we’ll be focusing on the area of Utah in and around Goblin Valley State Park and Hanksville, east and a little north of Capitol Reef National Park.

The first time I visited this area of Utah, I had not heard of Goblin Valley State Park but happened to see the sign for it as I was leaving Hanksville and heading back to Salt Lake.  I didn’t have time then to stop, but I made a mental note to look it up later. All I can say is, I wish I’d known about it sooner!  What a neat place!  The state park covers just shy of 10,000 acres and the main point of interest is this valley area full of large hoodoos, ranging in size from 8 feet to much taller.  The park is noted for having dark skies, which is one of the reasons I wanted to visit!  Holly and I ended up making a day of it, exploring around some of the area surrounding the park, staying for sunset, and then watching the Milky Way for a bit.

The picture above I captured at sunset.  As Holly and I were exploring around the park these features captured my eye.  As the sun was setting I noticed the unique lighting effect that was happening, creating some really nice colors in the highlights and shadows.  All the details of the rock formations seemed to “pop” as the fading light hit the various structures, which I thought really added interest.  These towers look like big mud globs!

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–Dan Thompson

After setting up and shooting the first image and feeling comfortable that I had captured what I was after, Holly and I started walking back toward the main valley and I spotted this scene off in the distance.  The setting sun provided an extremely low angle of light that I thought really set off the highlights and shadows of the mountains in the background and features of the foreground.  For this image I switched to infrared to really draw out that contrast.

I’m a sucker for slot canyons… my wife is somewhat claustrophobic.  These two don’t mix really well. LOL  As a compromise we decided to hike Little Wild Horse Canyon, which is fairly tame for a slot canyon, but still extremely beautiful.  I just love all the colors in some of these things and flowing lines.  I could have spent hours and hours in there photographing!

The last image I wanted to share here is of Factory Butte.  This structure is just so interesting looking to me, I can’t help but take pictures of it every time I see it.  On this particular evening I was actually looking to setup a Milky Way shot, but the setting sun gave a very nice glow on the butte, with just a hint of alpine glow in the air in the distance.  This is one of those things you just have to see in person though to fathom how big this thing is.  The area around it looks like something from another planet.