Let’s finish up the week with another ruin that I came across in the spring while hiking in Mule Canyon. While most people are familiar with the House on Fire ruins located in the same canyon, there are plenty of other ruins to visit….and even some that can be pretty photogenic, too. While exploring this ruin, I noticed the sun reflecting off of the sandstone above the granary accentuating the different colors which is what I wanted to show off in this photo.
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The House on Fire Ruins is one of those locations that every nature and landscape photographer seem to have a photo of in their portfolio. That’s OK because it is an amazing site to visit. I’ve visited these ruins, plus many others in Mule Canyon a few times and it is a great place to hike and explore.
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Even though this blog was mainly created so that I could share my rock art photos, I will occasionally share some of my photos of ruins as well. They kind of go hand-in-hand since I am usually out searching for both at the same time.
Here is my first photo of ruins posted on this blog, and it is actually one of my favorite photos taken so far this year. Back in April, my friend Jared and I headed up to the Mule Canyon Towers on Cedar Mesa just before sunset so that we could stick around for some night photography. I had this particular photo in mind when we went up there, so shortly before it was really dark out, I composed this shot on my tripod and waited for it to get a little bit darker out. My goal was to get some nice star trails behind the tower and through the window opening. Once it was dark enough out, I locked my shutter release cable and started the waiting. After about ten minutes a few clouds started to move across the sky and right into my shot! I was a bit upset by this and almost gave up, but fortunately I let my camera keep going. After about thirty minutes I finally decided to end the shot and pack up my gear. I had pretty much written off this shot as a failure at that point.
A few days later when I was back at home and going through all of my photos from the trip, I came across the shots that I took that night. I decided to process them and see how they turned out. To my surprise, I actually liked the way the clouds added some interest to the sky and was glad I did not give up on this shot!
For those of you wondering how the tower was lit, the almost-full moon was rising behind me and provided plenty of nice light on the tower so that I did not have to add any additional light to the scene.
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A unique perspective of a concentric circles petroglyph found in Mule Canyon. While exploring the ruins and rock are in this particular alcove I happened to notice the light was reflecting onto the top portion of the large alcove creating a nice glow and enhancing the dark stripes above. I then framed this petroglyph so that I was able to capture part of the glowing ceiling in the top right portion of the frame. I’m very happy with the result.
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