San Juan River - Southeast Utah

Looks like I'm in a desert southwest frame of mind lately. I took a Minnesota photog buddy exploring in the Monument Valley and southeast Utah area over a long weekend. Monument Valley was...well...Monument Valley. Beautiful as it is, the inability to do much in the way of self-exploration there is really turning me off to the park. We had a great time exploring the areas north of Mexican Hat, UT though. Here are a couple of shots of the San Juan river backdropped by the highly photogenic Raplee Anticline.

According to my "all things" lunar software, the moon was supposed to rise above this scene when I was there. It gave me bum information though as it actually rose much farther to the left...bummer!

Guy, I love that second shot... great wavy compositional lines and colors.

I agree about the second shot. Cool patterns in the background.

Mel-

Beauty! I really like these! I was hoping to find some good Rio Grande photos for this summer.

That second shot looks familiar. Nice work.

Both are great, but I think the vertical is the stronger of the two. I love that area, but sadly, I mostly just pass through when light sucks.

I was able to catch a moonrise at this same spot in the autumn.
I use the Navy's Sun/Moon Data charts and a compass.

'Moonrise Over the San Juan River'

Looks like almost exactly the same time of day and the converse date of the year comparing both shadows.

I do like that vertical composition.

The San Juan from Bluff to Mexican Hat, throughthe Raplee Anticline, is a fun river trip.
I highly recommend the 2 day version.

Thanks for the comments guys! Dang Adam, John....I thought I'd be the only one to have these shots! John, I really like that shot of yours. That's roughly where my lunar software said that the moon would rise that evening. Nothing doing, unfortunately. I also can't believe how much my image washed out when I view the uploaded version via a browser vs. viewing it on my pc with ps or microsoft's photo viewer. I saved it in sRGB color space so I'm not sure what happened there. That happens with a lot of my images, but it was especially noticeable with this one.

Bill, as I was watching a couple of rafts float by, I was thinking the same thing! I may have to look into that.

I really like these shots, Guy. I agree with the others, the vertical is awesome. I've always thought about stopping in that area, but like most people I guess I'm just intent on cruising by.

Ok, the washed out second image is just bugging me. Here's a link to the image in my PBase gallery that is more like I intended to present.

http://www.pbase.com/image/95949516

Those are both awesome images Guy. I agree with you about Monument Valley. Nice work!