• Enoch Powell.

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The stouts point overlook at Petit Jean SP has two main views. One view overlooking the farms and forestlands of the Arkansas River valley and another of the mighty Arkansas River itself. I posted an image of the valley viewpoint a couple of days ago. Today’s post is an image of the Arkansas River view. This area is a popular spot, and getting a panorama composition without people in it was a challenge. Another aspect is that in mid-day shots like this, getting diffused light is a challenge. The day we had some cloud cover, but the sun was intense, so I had to wait for a large cloud to come in and cover the sun before taking my shots. Between the people enjoying the view and waiting for cloud cover, I spend almost an hour at this location to get the picture right.

• Rumi.

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A couple of weeks go I had a chance to head back to the beautiful Petite Jean State Park. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much time before sunset, but I wanted to see how the viewpoint looked under softer sidelight. My first to this beautiful overlook was during mid-day, so I had high hopes. Unfortunately, I could not make it to the outlook before sunset, but we had the area to ourselves during twilight. We had some heavy cloud cover that day to the west, so there was very little light post-sunset.

But what stood out was how beautiful the landscape looked under softer reflected light. The calm Arkansas river perfectly reflected the pale blue color of the sky and the reddish-pink tones in the rocks seemed to pop out much better than daytime. Another factor was that without a colorful sky to compete against the stones with their vivid color and texture had a better chance to take centerstage.