Santa Elena Canyon

The showpiece location of Big Bend National Park is Santa Elena Canyon.  If you ever make it here and have just one night, the place you want to see sunrise is here at the canyon.


Calling this location spectacular is an understatement.


Here the Rio Grande flows out of the 1500' deep canyon it has carved in the Sierra Ponce wall.  You can stand at the rivers edge and look up and into it.  This is as awe inspiring of a location as the Grand Canyon and it is a whole lot easier to see and experience as it is just 100 yards from the parking lot.  Not that I am against a long arduous hike to get someplace, but as the large format photographers can tell you, close to the road is sometimes nice.



I had arrived in Big Bend one day last month to some amazing clouds and had one of my best days ever for photography.  I woke up on day two to clear skies and decided to photograph the canyon.  The clear skies should put nice light on the canyon and if I framed it right I could avoid too much empty blue sky.


When I normally photograph the canyon, it is from the mouth of the canyon as I cannot help but be drawn to the rivers edge and that huge wall right in front of you.  Well, I decided to try a different shot and went to the overlook, which is about 1/2 mile away from the canyon.  If you ever saw Ansel Adams image of Santa Elena Canyon, it was taken from the overlook.  The view here is less about the river as it is harder to pick out in the distance and more about the canyon cliff face.


I set up the camera in the dark and chose a longer lens.  Focused.  Decided this is a location all about the orange glow on the wall and went with Velvia 100F.  Waited.  When first light touched the top of the canyon walls I took an image.  When it got all the way to the bottom of the wall I took a second.  Then I switched to black and white.  I am still have yet to get the b+w images developed but the color looked good and is the image here.


What a way and place to watch the sunrise.

Sotol Vista

Sotol Vista is an overlook in Big Bend National Park that is the premier place in the park to watch the sunset.

On my last trip there I, of course, had to go there for at least one sunset. I ended up picking the best possible day as it had the best clouds of the entire trip.

The main view is obviously west. This is looking south. You can see the sotol-a yucca plant, and the distant desert mountains.

The rocks, yucca, ridges, and sky all made for a great composition I set up to work the scene in both black and white as well as color with the sunset.

On the Rio Grande

Along the Rio Grande in Big Bend National Park.

I spent a week this fall on Big Bend and one of the highlights of the trip was driving the River Road and photographing along it for three days.

Here is the view from one of my camps. This is on a small bluff overlooking the river. There is not another person for many miles and the view is amazing-desert, river, and mountains.

Follow more of my travels in Big Bend in my Wilderness Photographer blog linked to the right.

Santa Elena Canyon by Night

Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend National Park is a fantastic location to both visit and photograph.

I have photographed it many times over my visits. This last trip I got down to the canyon mouth on a clear morning to photograph it in the dark.

The stars of the night sky. The river flowing by. The huge walls of the Sierra Ponce.

What a great place.

Sunset at Sotol Vista

Yet another view from Sotol Vista. This one-a sunset.

Ok, maybe not the best sunset-but the moving clouds made for an interesting evening.

This is the view west.

Sotol Vista at Dawn

I always think of Sotol Vista as an evening place as it stares down west into the desert.

On a whim I decided to stop there in the morning. Perhaps the sun would light up the distant ridges and peaks.

Well on this day the cloud cover was good. I did not get the distant peaks lit up. No, I got the clouds lit up.

Even better!

I had set up in the dark looking west so I did a pivot, re-level, and refocus to go after the clouds and ridges to the south and east.

Here is a view of that morning

Back in Big Bend

After what seems like forever I made it back to Big Bend National Park earlier this month.

Something wonderful about the desert in spring.

I had a few days of sun and a few days of good clouds.

I tried to be frugal with the view camera this year, only using it on days with great light potential.

This was one of those days. Overcast clouds flying past in the later afternoon. It was windy but with the potential for a great sunset. I went right to the good afternoon view offered at Sotol Vista.

Here I am waiting for the light.

Why I Keep Going Back

There are some locations I keep going back to. Sometimes, I am hoping for better light, other times it because I just did not get the image to come out right.

So I keep going back.

This is one of those locations. It is in Big Bend National Park where the Rio Grande flows out of Santa Elena Canyon. I have photographed in this location several times. I have photographed several different angles both into and out of the canyon.

This view out the canyon has the Rio Grande, Terlingua Creek, and the Chisos in it. It is also an image that has intrigued me for four years. The first year the light was not right. For the next two years I got the light but missed the shot (either too weak or too strong grad filter). On this trip I had already worked this image once but at the time I had taken it was not too sure about the light. Then with only a short time left on the trip I got this. The clouds were right. The river was still. The dawn had glorious red sky. It all finally came together. On this morning I was able to get several sheets of Velvia through the camera.

And after four years and several attempts, I finally got a great image. Well maybe I'll have to try again on the next trip to see if I can do better. I guess I'll have to keep going back.

Under the Stars

The night skies of the Big Bend country are dark. Thy are very dark. The nearest cities are hundreds of miles away. This area is so dark that the University of Texas has the McDonald Observatory in the nearby Davis Mountains (by nearby I mean 150 miles away).

On dark clear nights you lose count of how many stars you see. The sky is so full of bright stars the constellations are hard to spot.

I often photograph here at night, especially in stretches of cloudless weather or even by the light of the moon.

This image is taken from a small hill looking west some time after dark. The stars are visible across the sky, yet the camera picks up just a hint of orange (not seen with the naked eye) on a lone cloud. The V notch of Santa Elena Canyon can be seen in the image too. You can also see a faint band of light that almost looks like it is coming out of the canyon. That is not an errant flashlight- it is Zodiacal light. This is an astronomical phenomenon that can only be seen in places of dark sky.

And for that-Big Bend is perfect.

The Grapevine Hills

The balanced rock in the Grapevine Hills of Big Bend National Park is one of the signature images of the area.

I have photographed it once several years before, but decided to make another go of it this past spring. Since I was staying at Cottonwood, I knew it would be an hour drive and at least a 30 minute walk. I left very early in the morning to give myself plenty of time. I left the parking lot for the one mile hike in the dark by the light of the moon and stars. I had my backpack with the 4x5, a small bag with the DSLR and two tripods. The moon was so bright I did not use the headlamp. I followed the braided wash up into the hills and then the path as it twisted up to the balanced rock.

One thing about the rock is there is very little space for the "classic" image. You are wedged in between two rocks and some cactus. I got the spot and set up. It was so dark I had to go place my headlamp on a rock for a focus target. Then I went right for a star trail image and photographed right through the sunrise.

What a great place and while the classic image is a narrow spot there are other images all around. As I waited for the sunrise with the 4x5, I worked other possible images with the DSLR. A little slow photography and a little fast photography. With plenty of images to look through at home.

This view here shows the 4x5 set up at the classic view in the early light. The camera is hot and I am working on a slow exposure. If anything I wish I could have made more.

Note to self-take more images.

Sometimes Things Don't Work Out

Sometimes things do not work out as planned in photography.

I had seen these rock fins on the western side of the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park. They are volcanic dikes that look like walls. I have often wanted to get a good image with them but have never had the right conditions. I saw an area that looked like it might be promising and there were just a few clouds but I hoped for a nice image.

I parked the vehicle and started walking toward one through the brush. Normally cross country is pretty easy in deserty country as the plants have decent spacing between them. However after a few hundred yards I got to a small wash that was thick on either side with thorny brush. It was only a few feet thick but it was one tangled wall and being the desert-everything had thorns. I tried walking length wise hoping for a gap but no dice. I went back to the vehicle and drove farther down the road finding a better angle to get to a rock fin. I saw another gully to cross and dropped into the dry streambed with hopes to get close.

I was closer but this gully was about five feet deep with thick brush and looked like it was also difficult to get to. Luckily I found a small series of ledges off a side stream I could climb out of and get to the rock fin.

The slope up to it was very steep and loose with gravel. The fin was angled off what I wanted. I could not get a good down the length of the fin image.

Two hours of stumbling through brush and I could not get the image I wanted. You can see the image I got in the above photo. The clouds had moved out of the image and the leading lines just were not there.

I made exactly one image and then packed up and headed back to the vehicle. Drove on thinking the evening was a bust. As the sun was setting in the distance I saw a backlit Ocotillo. It was too far out for the 4x5 and my wide angle views, but I did manage to get a few nice snaps of it with a long lens on the DSLR.

The image I had been wanting just did not work, but a fluke chance brought me an image I could only happen upon. I got a pretty decent image. I guess things worked out after all.

Terlingua Abaja

Lower Terlingua Creek running over rocks at sunrise.

The view here is upstream to the north. Low hills that dot the western side of Big Bend National Park can be seen in the distance. At one time these were settlements along this creek as well as the shade of many cottonwood trees. History also tells us most of the trees were cut down for the ranches and mines in the area. Today mostly just rock and a trickle of water remain.

Subtlety on Terlingua Creek

Water is an amazing thing. That seems like such a simple and obvious statement, but it is true.

Especially for a photographer. Or when you are in the desert. Then water takes on a whole new meaning. .

In this parched land water is a precious gift. As a photographer I know water can lead me to magical locations, great scenes and reflect the big light of sunset.

In Big Bend the Rio Grande is the main body of water. It carved the majestic canyons, creates the border, and its big turn or bend gives the park its name.

Terlingua Creek is another such body of water. It flows clear, shallow, and simple down the western side of the park. It is probably ignored or forgotten by most people unless it is flooding and blocks the trail into Santa Elena Canyon.

This little creek intrigues me. I really like the thin shallow ribbon like quality of how it flows. I like the clear quality of the water. I like the fact others ignore it. I also like that throughout most of its course you can look south and see the imposing ramparts of the Sierra Ponce in the distance.

I was walking along the creek in the afternoon and found several nice dark streaks on the rock and decided that it could be the source of a nice image. The next day it was clear but I decided to try for the creek. I started walking in the dark with my pack, a shoulder bag, and two tripods. I found the spot in the dark and set up the big camera with the thought of getting a starlight image. .

After one long 15 minute exposure, I set to work on the morning image. As the light grew in the sky I made several images of the creek and rocks.

I was not working the huge scene as much as I was working with a simple ripple of water on rock in a shallow stream with a big wall beyond.

Subtle. Simple. Superb.

At Work in the Desert

Here is a slightly different angle for me. Instead of taking a picture of the scene the camera is taking a picture of-it is a picture of camera itself and what it usually looks like when I am making an image.

Always on a tripod. Always. Using a ND Grad. The Grad filter is half dark and half clear. It allows me to "hold back" a bright sky so I can even out the exposure on the sky and the ground. Those little filters do more for the landscape photographer than any other. In this set up I probably have the polarizer on too, but since it is behind the grad, it might be hard to see.

You might also notice that the front camera standard is raised slightly. That allows me to exclude foreground and still keep perspective. It is much more effective than tilting the whole camera back and a major feature of a view camera. The Fuji Quickload Holder is on the back of the camera and the silver packets on my pack are the Quickload film-Velvia, of course.

That is a pretty typical location set up. A pack full of gear, a tripod, and the big camera.

Note- the mountains in the background are the Christmas Mountains (of frequent news). I hope they can be added to BBNP and I look forward to making a visit to them.

The Sierra Ponce

Looking down river and down the length of the Sierra Ponce. The near vertical wall rises 1500 feet and runs for miles. The Rio Grande has carved its way through this over eons.

This view is right where the river exits Santa Elena Canyon. The Rio hooks a quick right and follows the wall for a mile or so before turning southeast though the desert.

Wait 15 Minutes

There is an old saying in Texas that if you do not like the weather-wait 15 minutes. Boy is that ever true.

I awoke to cloudless skies one morning and left camp trying to decide where to go. I thought with totally clear sky that the entrance to Santa Elena Canyon would be good. As I started the 10 minute drive I began to see clouds. I parked at the canyon entrance and as I gathered my gear I noticed the sky was completely clouded over.

This changed everything. I now had thoughts of a big sunrise filling the sky so I walked up the hill into the canyon and hoped to face east.

I found a great view, set up the camera and waited for the dawn. The sky never went orange. The clouds had moved so fast that it was a cool gray dawn.

Then just as the sun rose the clouds began to part behind me and clear sky began to happen again. That was when I made this image. Within another 20 minutes the sky was clear again.

I did not get the dramatic sunrise I wanted, but I sure had an interesting sky. From clear to cloudy to clear in about an hour.

Turn Around

Here is another image taken overlooking the Rio Grande. This view is about 90 degrees right from where my last post was. I may have moved the tripod 6 feet. Maybe.

The view is west toward Santa Elena Canyon. You can see the "V" notch where the canyon cuts through the Sierra Ponce(the big 1500' tall wall you see). It is about 8 miles up river from where I am.

It was late afternoon and the clouds were starting to build with the hopes of a great sunset. Every direction had something interesting. I was not sure where to start, to stay here all evening, or to move to one of several different close by areas. Sometimes having alot of options is not a good thing.

So I started by taking a picture and then turning around to see what else was there. Next thing you know-it's sunset.

Overlooking the Rio Grande

Not too far from the Desert Mountain Overlook there are several places one can get a view of the river. Most of them are not marked as such but there are usually good gravel shoulders one can park on. The chance to use the river as a leading line is a strong element to put into a photography.

In the case of the Rio Grande, it is also a dividing line.

This image was made up on one of those spots above the river. The Chisos are out of the image to the left and they draw the most attention. This view is south across the river to Mexico. If you look close you can see the signs of the village of Santa Elena. Which is the only habitation for many, many miles.

I like this view. It is especially nice in the morning when the Ponce wall is lit by the first light of day. I also like this late afternoon view. It may lack dramatic light but it is a dramatic land.

In the Yucca Forest

In the Yucca forest. Ok, it is not the deep woods. It about the best and biggest thing on the desert floor. The yuccas here are 12-15' tall. They are growing rather close too (for desert plants). It is the forest of the desert.

The view here is away south toward the Sierra Ponce. The cliffs are in Mexico across the Rio.

Moonset Over Yucca Forest and Santa Elena

After making some night exposures of the stars above the yucca, the light began to turn to the gray of early twilight. The moon was hanging over the top of Santa Elena Canyon too.

I decided to remake the image to one with all three elements in it. The light was still early and I would like for the first light of the sun to be striking the canyon with the moon still over the wall, but I was one day too early for that image.

I filled the frame with yucca, showing the canyon walls and the moon just peaking over the top.

I made the image, watched the moon set, and waited for first light.