White Pocket First Timer (crop repost 2)

A few photos from my first exploration of White Pocket over the RMNP Labor Day weekend trip.

I was looking for a photo partner to venture out to this remote location. Just a couple days before the travel, Doug and I connected on a plan for Friday night to meet up there on our ways into the North Rim. And my arrival by plan was quite late - making House Rock Road from the 89A shortly after 9:00 pm and after some monsoonal storms. With the full moon I made my way across the 25 miles, the last 17 miles of which were deeply sanded cattle roads. I have to say that one should not do this at night; but if you do, drive a high clearance 4x4 and have sand driving and navigation experience.

(added) The sand is similar to parts of Sand Flats in Moab, perhaps slightly deeper but not as bad as sand dunes. There are some deep shifty sections. I had few problems, other than confusion at one Y where I took the correct way, then backed out at a cattle gate, drove 2 minutes longitude east, then came back. In the dark you have to be an instrument rated pilot. :)

After meeting up with Doug, I took a 1 am hike alone out to the front range. Then a few hours later we worked the sunrise.

As this was my first visit, most of the shots were fairly clueless. White Pocket is a weird and strange place, full of wonderous forms and constantly changing light. It will take several visits to master this place. Here are a few I wanted to share.

#1 A fairly dramatic treatment on Candy Mountain(name?). I intentionally framed Mollies Nipple in the distance as a counterpoint to the Mollies Nipple Rainbow from Bryce (see Chasing Rainbows 8/14). I added the vignette to help accentuate the center. Maybe too much sky. I am not sure about it, so let the comments begin :)

A 1200-wide is under the large photo link.

#2 - White Pocket under a Full Moon (around 2 am) 4-shot Focus Stack

(note, sky is dark blue, but color space of some monitors/browsers may take it purple - or so it seems in sRGB on my monitor. I edit in aRGB then export to sRGB via LR4)

#3 - White Pocket under a Full Moon, Horizontal (around 1:30 am) More Focus Stack.

And a special thanks to Doug for taking the trip out there.

Many more trips out there ahead.

Karl, your time there was certainly limited. One morning whets the appetite for a return though.
I like the narrower view you caught in #1. It does seem dark with like a grey cast though (viewed on both FF and IE).
Another full moon this coming weekend

Doug - heh...I am so tempted and its doable Friday night - I am headed on to Moab and I could just point the steering wheel due East at St George instead of North up to Beaver.

I took a look at the grey cast. The image is cropped which lost some of the good blue sky above us. It was stormy all night long out there so maybe thats residual. But I am thinking what is reinforcing the darkness is the vignette (see lower corners) I have been thinking it may be too heavy.

The vignette is a bit too heavy on #1 and it could use some local contrast enhancement ('Image Polish' via USM filter).
The problem with long exposures taken under full moonlight is that they look exactly like a slightly underexposed daytime shot.
Also not so keen on your choice of foregrounds with #'s 2 & 3. They seem to provide more of a block than allowing the eye to flow.
I see those wonderful serpent-like sandstone formations in the midground and think of the possibilities of an intriguing foreground there.

Here is a quick edit,,, less vignette, slightly brighter, pumped a bit more sky sat to cut the haze/fog in the distance. Probably not a final edit, but a direction.

>> Here is a quick edit,,, less vignette, slightly brighter, pumped a bit more sky sat to cut the haze/fog in the distance. Probably not a final edit, but a direction. << Also cropped some sky.

Here it is.

Thanks John,

I'll take a look at unsharp. The full size image has a bunch more detail, so I might have lost something on the scale down or simply missed an export sharpening step. Good catch.

On #2 and #3. I'll have to look at that next time. From where I was in a weird full moon place, I was having flashbacks to my 2:00 ams in BadWater / Death Valley. Love those geometries. I'll probably be braver next time - maybe even get beyond the first ridge.

(update - yep, the export did not have the sharpen checked. I'll play with USM on the original first tho)

I like your composition in #1 the best, and agree with John's critiques. Your revised image looks a lot better as well. I've only been there once, for just a few hours and would love to get back for a couple days.

The repost looks much more vibrant, Karl.

Man am I jealous you guys went to white pocket before the canyon shindig. Given that you got there late at night, you came away with some decent stuff, but surely could have produced even better images. I'm always a sucker for night shots, so I appreciate those despite the emptiness in the foregrounds. The repost of the first image looks much better, but if I may offer one more suggestion it would be to crop that image at the bottom about a half inch just above the folds in the very foreground. I really cannot wait to see this place for myself.

You got some very neat shots from a short amount of time u spent here. The repost looks much better. I am also going to echo on peters crop suggestion on the bottom. Cant wait to see this place too (Doug )

Good idea Chikku, Peter. Trimming out the fold, interesting as at was, helped focus the shot. Here is a repost. I started with the original source and made just the edits I needed - with the new crop, output sharpen, and with the sky/fold gone, no vignette (thanks John). All good suggestions guys!

Peter, Chikku. Let me know if you plan to head out there. I'd be happy to join you pending schedule.

Bingo! This is the one.

Definitely the last repost is dead on! Love the detail in the large version.