The Image: Hoofprints in the Amphitheater
Hoofprints in the Amphitheater
Location: Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah
Equipment: Sony A7R IVA | Tamron 28-200mm
I had hiked into the Bryce Canyon amphitheater about 90 minutes before sunrise to stake a claim at my preferred composition at Thor’s Hammer for Sunrise that I scouted the night before. After I was satisfied with that image I planned to hike the Peekaboo Loop Trail deeper into the amphitheater and partially up the other side before returning the way I came.
I have a tendency to outpace myself on solo photography trips. Without someone else along to encourage me to slow my pace I tend to try and see how long I can maximize my schedule. This is where I found myself 7 days into a 13 day road trip to the American West - 1500 miles of driving, wake up calls before 4:30 am and location shoots for sunset every evening. It was a trip I had dreamed of for years and I didn’t want to miss a moment.
Worn down by days of long hikes and little sleep I stopped to take an uncharacteristically long rest - at least the view was great! I was sizing up the a composition with a 150-500mm lens looking south while I sat there and heard voices and hoofprints behind and below me.
Realizing I had a chance to capture my scene with a rider on the trail I rushed to my back to switch to my 28-200mm workhorse lens. The first rider was the guide in a cowboy hat, while the second rider a little ways behind was wearing a pink hoodie - I was only going to have one chance to capture the scene with a ‘Western’ feel before the rest of the group moved in.
I snapped on my lens, adjusted my aperture and set focus and had time to fire off just the one exposure seen here, handheld. This is one of my favorite images of the trip - I typically don’t include human subjects in my photographs, I typically want the geology and landscape to be my subject, but I find that the horse and rider add scale to the scene and anchor the composition in time amidst the hoodoos and rocks worked by the forces of water and wind for millenia.
What works:
Horse and rider give a ‘Western’ feel and scale to the image
Multiple rows of hoodoos give a layering to the image helping to convey depth and three dimensionality.
Early morning hours create contrast between light and dark hoodoo formations
What I would change:
More time to compose image
Include slightly more foreground to lead the viewer into the image - had to pan up slightly to correctly space the stovepipe formation behind the rider
