I like this video from photography vlogger and landscape photographer Thomas Heaton.
He tells the story about leading a group of photographers to the famous “Mesa Arch” in Canyonlands National Park in Utah, one of the bucket list locations for landscape photographers.
The arch is one of those done to death locations where landscape photographers stand tripod to tripod jockeying for position to get the same photograph everyone has seen a million times.
I’ve never been to Mesa Arch. I’ve also never been to Jenne Farm at sunrise during fall foliage season to witness a similar site of photographers all lined up to get the same shot.
It’s an interesting story. First of all how Thomas Heaton explains how small the arch really is in real life. As he tells the story, the classic shot gets in close with a 16mm or wider lens and at that distance you can just about reach out and touch the arch.
There is only room for about five photographers to get the classic shot. And the classic shot that you see over and over is when the sun comes up and light bounces off the canyon and on to the bottom of the arch, lighting it up with a colorful glow.
To get the shot means traveling hours in the middle of the night and then hiking to the location with head lamps.
Heaton’s group set out at 4 am and arrived at the Mesa Arch around 5:30 and there were already four tripods set up in position. So already only two or three in his group could set up in the classic position.
So like an good landscape photography instructor, Heaton encourage to the rest of the group to explore the area for other compositions.
As sunrise approached he also noticed that the sky was full of clouds. This would not be a good day to capture sunrise bouncing off the canyon but it would be a good day to capture some amazing moody skies in a landscape.
Still as sunrise approached, more and more photographers arrived the front of Mesa Arch. They started crowding the photographers in the front who had been there for hours, waiting in the dark. Despite the weather was not going to be good for the shot they had envisioned.
Sleep deprived, cold, and stressed out to capture the iconic shot of their expensive vacation with their expensive camera equipment, several in the photography mob started to get surly – shouting at people to turn off their headlamps or to move back.
Seems like a crazy scene. I think I’d rather just buy the postcard and call it a day and explore some other location away from the crowds. Some people enjoy taking the same picture they’d seen a thousand times, but think the lesson here is to seek your own voice, look for your own special landscapes to photography. Sure it’s fun to try to recreate some great shot you’ve seen but is it really enjoyable being out in the great outdoors fighting over two feet of space?
Mesa Arch is a pothole arch in Canyonlands National Park, Utah. It features as one of the standard desktop backgrounds on Windows 7 in the Landscapes section. Moab, UT 84532
This photo of Mesa Arch is courtesy of TripAdvisor