Arch and Shadows. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved. A Utah red rock country arch in a shadowed canyon.

It can seem that improbable features like this are everywhere in Southern Utah. While many are familiar from national parks like Zion and Arches, similar features are found in less accessible places, and if you poke around enough you can experience them in relative quiet and solitude. I've wondered why it is this way in Utah, and I think there are several explanations including that such features really are quite common, and some that warrant national park status are in non-park areas for reasons including uneasy compromises with extractive industries.

A group of us wandered into a lovely canyon, inauspicious at the start but with sandstone walls that soon began to tower and close us in from the world beyond. These are intimate places, where your awareness is mostly confined to the space between the canyon bends in front of and behind you, and where the quiet is only broken by the an occasional birdsong and by the gentle sounds of water.

View (larger), discuss, and more at the website: www.gdanmitchell.com/2020/09/16/arch-and-shadows

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Make:	Canon
Model:	Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Exposure:	0.02 sec (1/50)
Aperture:	f/11.0
ISO Speed:	100
Focal Length:	47 mm
Lens:	EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM