I've been off photographing around Moab the last few days. Earlier this evening I photographed Balanced Rock at sunset and was waiting for it to get dark enough to shoot star trails. I heard a slight rumbling and cracking in the direction of Balanced Rock and didn't know quite what to make of it. Then, to my shock and amazement, the rock began tilting and actually fell off its pedestal!! I was a little horrified at first, though after gaining my bearings I realized that the processes that destroy these formations are the same ones that create them. So it can't really be considered tragic, as it's all part of a natural cycle. Nevertheless, I am still in a bit of disbelief at it all.
When the rock started falling, I instinctively begain clicking the cable release on my camera, as I had it set it up on my tripod framing Balanced Rock. So I got shots of the rock as it was falling. No one else was there since the sun had already set. I knew I had exclusive images of a rare event, so I called a guy who's done some publicity work for my books and he's gotten me on CNN! He's also working on getting me on Good Morning America. I'll be on CNN Live tomorrow (Saturday) at around 4:30 pm (MST) - they may show the images I took earlier than that. So check it out if you can. I sold them exclusive rights for 1 year to the 2 images I got of the rock falling. So I can't post those. But I've posted a shot above taken after the rock had fallen. You can see all the dust that was kicked up and if you look very closely to the left of the pedestal you can see a portion of the fallen boulder. The quality of the images isn't too great, since the light was so low. It's strange to think that these low-quality shots will probably be the most famous ones I ever take.
Anyway, everything has happened so suddenly that I don't know quite what to make of it all. But I wanted to share it with others.
SCORE!! This is truly amazing news, and I'm glad to hear you were the one there to capture it! All your time spent out there has really paid off... looking forward to chatting with you more about this. Congratulations!
That's a great gag! Thanks for making "fools" of us!!
Ken
Posted by Todd Caudle on April 1, 2006 at 12:00 PM
Yeah, I wondered who would try to pull something today.
Posted by Todd Caudle on April 1, 2006 at 12:05 PM
BTW, do you know that someone actually pulled this gag several years ago in Colorado Springs, and a few of the local stations actually bit? It wasn't April Fool's Day, so they must've thought it was real. After receiving a faxed press release, one TV station and a few local radio stations reported that Balanced Rock in Garden of the Gods had fallen over. The funny thing was, everyone named in the press release they received, from the publicist to the "witnesses," all had names derivitive of characters from "Seinfeld"! True story.
Gee, just because this happened to occur on the eve of April Fool's Day, some of you people refuse to believe me. Now, even CNN is becoming skeptical. Next time, I'll have to choose a different day to dynamite an iconic formation .
My thanks to Nat for teaching me Photoshop well enough to apparently fool even him. And to Todd for starting this tradition. My apologies to Darren K for deleting his post. Apparently he was briefly fooled before realizing the date and editing his post. I deleted that one in hopes of getting a few more victims.
Posted by Scott Buckel on April 1, 2006 at 4:58 PM
Grant - atleast you are following a long tradition of April 1st posts. I still remember a certain photographer tried to convince us that he had to sell all of his equipment since his wife found picutres on his computer. . .
Yeah you had me really going. I was looking forward to seeing you CNN describing it, then I went wait a minute. So I went back and read all the other posts before mine that I had yet to finish. GEESH! Thats twice in one day. Usually I'm the prankster in my house. You would think that working at a Newspaper I'd be more aware.
Discussion
18 repliesWhen the rock started falling, I instinctively begain clicking the cable release on my camera, as I had it set it up on my tripod framing Balanced Rock. So I got shots of the rock as it was falling. No one else was there since the sun had already set. I knew I had exclusive images of a rare event, so I called a guy who's done some publicity work for my books and he's gotten me on CNN! He's also working on getting me on Good Morning America. I'll be on CNN Live tomorrow (Saturday) at around 4:30 pm (MST) - they may show the images I took earlier than that. So check it out if you can. I sold them exclusive rights for 1 year to the 2 images I got of the rock falling. So I can't post those. But I've posted a shot above taken after the rock had fallen. You can see all the dust that was kicked up and if you look very closely to the left of the pedestal you can see a portion of the fallen boulder. The quality of the images isn't too great, since the light was so low. It's strange to think that these low-quality shots will probably be the most famous ones I ever take.
Anyway, everything has happened so suddenly that I don't know quite what to make of it all. But I wanted to share it with others.
Ken
My thanks to Nat for teaching me Photoshop well enough to apparently fool even him. And to Todd for starting this tradition. My apologies to Darren K for deleting his post. Apparently he was briefly fooled before realizing the date and editing his post. I deleted that one in hopes of getting a few more victims.
Happy Fools Day!
Thanks for the chuckle,
I like the "7 stages of April Fools Frustration" via emoticon by James.
You had me hooked! I'm thinking, this is tight! then I keep reading, and then it started to dawn on me, wait a second here, just who is the fool?
ME!!!!
Good One!