Photos from Capitol Reef National Park

How to get photos of a national park in 1.5 days

I recently taught a photography workshop in Death Valley and decided to drive west instead of fly. On the way, I stopped in Capitol Reef National Park. I got there late in the afternoon and had set aside a full day for exploration. I lucked out a bit with the weather, but I also had a plan on how to maximize my photography time in the park to make sure that I came away with at least five good shots.

This newsletter is really long, so you’ll likely need to head to Substack to read it all.

Before I dive into my simple plan, which is really simple, I want to answer a why Capitol Reef and not Arches or another Utah park. If you’ve been following my work, you’ll know that I’ve never stopped for photography in Utah before. One of the main reasons is that the red rocks and desert haven’t interested me visually. When I see photos from there, they don’t grab my attention.

I decided that I needed to go photograph a park there to see if the landscape would speak to me. When looking at parks, two interested me mainly because of the trees that I saw in the photos. That was Capitol Reef and Great Basin. The choice was made for me when a snowstorm would have made Great Basin slightly risky based on my agenda.

The Plan

This was pretty simple.

1. Secure a campsite.

2. Visit the park office and ask where the best sunset and sunrises were. Get suggestions of a favorite must-do hike. Grab pamphlets and maps.

3. Get to the sunset spot early and scout it before the good light.

4. Go to camp and look over the topography and read about the park to figure out when the light would be good in areas of interest.

5. Whenever I ran into a park employee ask where their favorite place in the park was and what areas they liked for sunrise and sunset.

The sunset part of my plan was simple. Everyone said, “Sunset Point.”

Ignoring their advice, I went to Gooseneck Point first. It was the same parking lot, but the view looked more directly into the sun.

Once I got a view of the canyon below (I’m not sure how deep it was, but it was hundreds of feet deep), I knew that shooting into the sun wasn’t the right way to shoot this park. The light was painting the rock an orange-red and the trees a golden green. The key would be to shoot away from the sun or across the light for sidelight. Juxtapositioning the trees against the rock seems like the best way to create good near/far or foreground/background photos. The first I got that I liked is the opening photo.

I tried a foreground of rock, too, but it wasn’t as interesting to me.

After I got my first shot, I knew I had the only shot that I really needed to represent the area for that sunset. Now I could play around. The trees are what drew me to the park, so that’s what I photographed.

By playing around, I mean just trying to photograph different trees from different angles. Sometimes you’ll get something that works and other times you won’t. But for me, at least, I have to try a bunch of different shots until I find something that clicks.

And then a snowstorm hit. I took the snowstorm time to look at Sunset Point.

The rangers at the visitors station also recommended Sunset Point for sunrise. The next morning, I drove there in the dark. I got out of my car at Panorama Point, and I decided that wasn’t the spot to do sunrise. Instead, I decided to drive 24 east until I saw something that I thought would look good.

That didn’t work out well. I descended into a canyon and lost view of the horizon. When I emerged, the sunrise was turning the sky pink. I was near a badlands area, so I ran to try and get a photo. It’s okay, but right after this I found three round basalt rocks sitting together but isolated from everything else. Had I scouted this area, I would have shot those while the sky was painted.

Having missed sunrise, I wondered if I could drive S. Notom Road to get early morning light painting the formations of the park. I found it beautiful and wanted to drive further, but I also found that my images weren’t speaking to me from this spot. I was also not sticking to my plan of staying in the Fruita area of the park.

So, I returned to the the Hickman Natural Bridge hiking trail, because all the maps seemed to suggest it would be in the best light in the morning. It was in pretty good light. I only carried a 24-120 lens with me and that was a mistake. I should have carried a 14-24 as well. I knew better, but was feeling lazy and didn’t want to carry the extra weight.

I knew I wanted to see the Petroglyphs Panels, so those were next. I didn’t think I’d get any great photos there. But as I was walking along, I notice across the roads and behind the fruit orchids that the cottonwood trees stood out against the red canyon walls.

The ranger had recommended the Scenic Drive as the one MUST do things in the park if I only had one day, and another ranger had recommended the Golden Throne as her favorite hike. Looking at the time, I knew I had enough time for the drive and hiking to The Tanks, but probably not enough time for the Golden Throne if I wanted to do sunset at Sunset Point, which I did. I figured that The Tanks would be best in the afternoon, but the were half-in and half-out of the light, so that was a failed guess.

The light in there is interesting, so if I return I’ll need to spend sunrise to sunset there to figure it out. I think to make it work, each pool needs to be completely in or out of the light, but I’m not 100% on that without waiting to see.

I had beelined to The Tanks knowing that the afternoon light would light up the eastern cliffs. I took my time photographing the light playing on the rocks as I made my way back towards my sunset spot.

I also found mud and a tree along the way.

And there was the Fruita Barn that needed to be photographed. Unfortunately, the park has cement barriers around one side of the barn, so I couldn’t photograph it from the angle I wanted, which was from a trail giving a high angle on the barn and road. Instead, I used the split rail fences as a foreground element leading to the barn.

I finished with sunset at Sunset Point. It was nice. I really loved the snow on the Henry Mountains. I had scouted this shot the day before. I wish I would have been there just 10 minutes sooner for a little more light on the foreground, but I was trying to photograph a tree using the tower and mountains in the background. The tree shot didn’t work out like I thought it would.

And that was how my simple plan came together. I lucked out with the dynamic and dramatic weather, but the plan helped me get to the most locations in the shortest time while trying to get the light right at each spot. Rangers know the park best, so talking to them will often help with this quick stops.

Until next time

I hope you enjoyed this visit to Capitol Reef National Park, and I’ll see you again in two weeks.

p.s. don’t forget to buy one of my calendars here: https://www.lulu.com/shop/bryan-hansel/northern-landscapes-calendar-2024/paperback/product-2m29j64.html?page=1&pageSize=4