Website Instagram Facebook
This is Spiderweb Arch on Hunt's Mesa, Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Utah and Arizona. this is a relatively little know arch to the general public. predominantly because it is so hard to get to. The drive to Hunt's Mesa is an adventure in itself, with deep sand and rocky poorly defined tracks. In many areas the term "roads" would be an exaggeration. You also need a local guide.
This double arch is huge. It makes Double Arch in Arches National Park look modest in comparison. For scale please look at the small bright light in the right lower area of the photo. You might need to enlarge the photo, but there is a photographer there, Eric Gail, sitting by his tripod on a small ledge taking photos. He is virtually lost within the enormity of the cavernous space.
There is some distortion from trying to capture the inside of a sphere onto a rectangular photo. The two opening at the top are overhead. The roof opening on the right is considerably larger than the one on the left, but I am closer to the one on the left making it look as large. I had to move far left in the arch to include the Milky Way. Iy took longer than expected to figure out just how to include the whole arch within a photo. It would not fit on a 14 mm panorama vertically or horizontally. I finally captured it as a horizontal 12 mm fisheye panorama.
Many thanks to our guide Quanah Parker from Majestic Monument Valley Tours. He is a night photographer himself, and I probably would not have been able to climb the steep 45 degree walls without his help. When we arrived in the dark, it was like "you want me to do what?, lol. He got me up into the arch however, and then it was just a matter of trying to prevent your camera, tripod, and camera bag from sliding down the slope.
If you want to see places like this at night, Google " Majestic Monument Valley Tours, and ask for Quanah Parker.
For more images like this please take a look at
Wayne Pinkston Photography .
Thanks for all the kind support! Hope you enjoy! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family. It's a pleasure to post here. Cheers, Wayne
