Kiva

• Buddha.

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Another shot from the majestic false kiva of Canyonlands National park. I don’t have words for how beautiful this site is and how much the hard scrambling hike contribute to the beauty. To be honest this site was one of the reasons why I zeroed in on Island in the sky part of Canyonlands over other sections. And the park didn’t disappoint, this is an absolutely gorgeous piece of land, I am glad I got to visit and experience the park.

For this shot, I used a slightly longer focal length to get the far away canyon walls more prominence and get the really gorgeous light coming in from the right lighting up the walls properly. If you have a chance add this park to your list and make the hike to false kiva a priority. Just be careful.

7 shots with 24MM stitched together. I exposed for the sky and "dug out" the shadows. The D800E has incredible DR. This is a very special spot. I have had it on my bucket list for some time. It's not on any park map but if you ask the rangers for directions they will help you get there. Please be respectful as this is an active archeological site.

• Thomas Fuller.

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One of the coolest locations that we have ever visited during our many trips to the American southwest is the false kiva at Canyonlands National Park. The trail to this beautiful location is barely marked and is almost impossible to find. We met two other hikers on our quest to find the trail who gave up and went back to their cars. Once we found a couple of trail cairns we were overjoyed but soon it looked like the trail dropped off a canyon cliff. It took me about 20 minutes to finally figure out that the trail actually turns sharply right from the cliff and while it looks daunting from the top its actually not the hardest part of the trail. The hardest part came when we had to navigate a bit of a boulder meadow full of rocks the size of a smart car. It took us way more time than we planned to get over the boulder field and finally to climb to the small cave that contains the false kiva.

While the trail was hard and difficult to navigate, the view from the kiva more than made up for the difficulties we experienced. While we didn’t quite stay till the full sunset, I got this shot with some fantastic details of the kiva and some great colors in the sky. Technically I find cave shots to be one of the hardest shots that I have to take and this image, not an exception. I had a hard time balancing the bright sky with the darkness of the cave and the false kiva. So this image is a composite of three images. The first one was taken to show off details of the cave and the second one with a 2 stop nd grad and exposing for the sky and the sunset and a third image where I did average metering of the whole scene with a bit of exposure compensation added to get the histogram correct. I blended my three images using a bit of exposure blending techniques by incorporating luminosity masks rather than using an HDR software. I think I am much more satisfied with luminosity masking than most HDR software that I have used.

• Ambrose Bierce.

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One of the locations I was keen to visit during our December trip to Utah was the stunningly beautiful False Kiva site. I read a bit about the hike and it seemed pretty manageable added to the fact that we will be doing the hike in winter and not under the searing hot summer sun. When I looked at maps, it looked like this location was not ideal place for sunset as the canyon walls to the right will block any light putting the whole location in shade. So we decided to head out there early evening and get back to the car while there is still some daylight out there.

Turns out, this was an excellent decision, as the hike turned out to be much harder than expected. First of all the snow on the ground have covered any previous tracks. Add to that the trail seems to disappear over a small cliff and then seem to resume at the bottom of the cliff. Guide books talked about looking for kairns to find a relatively easy path down the cliff, but the snow made them almost impossible to find. We even ran into a Japanese photographer who gave up and went back. But with a trusted trail map we persisted and scampered down to the bottom of the cliff. From where there was a casual stroll for a bit before we came across what looked like a field of fallen boulders. The next stage of the hike was climbing over a multitude of rocks and boulders to reach the bottom of the cave that is false kiva. Then we had to basically inch our way up and finally climb over a giant boulder to get to the location.

Once we reached, the view was absolutely phenomenal. I managed to get this shot while the sun was fairly high up in the sky but was lighting up the canyon wall in stunning light. So I sacrificed some highlights for a detailed shot of the awesome False Kiva.