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1 st of April 2004, late evening, stormy weather, we were returning back from the southernmost point in the Island in the Sky, at Canyonlands National Park, near Moab, Utah. The sky was filled with clouds, and after having taken a couple of shots from that view, we decided it was too late, and the light was not suitable anymore for photography. The kids were in the back of the car, hungry, tired, and upset. As we were driving north, toward the Park’s exit, we noticed a glimmer of shine in the cloudy sky. We stopped the car on the road, and frantically, I started searching for an interesting foreground.
The dead juniper tree was right where I wanted to be: close to the cliff and isolated. I set-up the tripod, and have barely the time to compose and shoot a couple of pictures before the clouds turned dark again.
Back home, as we looked into these pictures, we were amazed by the amount of color that the camera was able to capture. To our naked eyes, the sky was dark blue, and everything else dark gray. The camera’s long exposure revealed colors generated by the different hues of reflected dim light.
In the following year, 2005, I returned to the same location in May, alone, and waited relentlessly until very late in the night. The magic light captured in the picture above did not show up. This photo will remain one of those where luck and perseverance were the key elements to an outstanding shot.
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