I captured this moment a few days ago in Canyonlands, Utah. I normally stay away from National Parks due to their tourist attraction mobs and the dreaded chirping human birds that show up in tour buses. However, this day was an exception since I was trying to photograph ‘people’ and their actions as fish-out-of-water animals in the great outdoors. GARY ORONA GALLERY. Read on below:
A lone tree overlooking the Canyonlands of Utah as photographed by Gary Orona.
Interestingly 95% of the people here on this day were Italian, French or German with very few English speaking types. Curious isn’t it?
My goal was to shoot Mesa Arch for what is has really become which is a spiritless place overrun by human hordes which is in sharp contrast to the way so many photographers depict it. That is to say, it’s depicted as some great adventure to be here, but the truth is the parking lot is about 300 yards away from the arch and it’s absolutely Disney-ish in its crowded condition.
So for once I was actually shooting people in the great outdoors to make a point. I wasn’t disappointed… it was a mob scene. In fact it was so crowded and chaotic that I was completely surprised that none of the tourists (especially the un-supervised little children) fell over the cliff edge down the 500 foot face to a sudden and bloody death splattered on the rocks below.
After about three hours at the arch I simply couldn’t take it anymore. As a master of solitude in extremely distant wilderness locations I just couldn’t take the insanity of this pseudo-adventure anymore.
I have to give it to many well known landscape photographers who dwell in these people-infested places all the while putting on airs of ” their great photo expeditions” you’re better actors than I am. I can’t do it. I’ve noticed that there seems to be this “bucket-list” of sorts in which world-renowned photographers all shoot basically the same shots from the exact same location?
For me I have to be authentically in a place of solitude and untouched savage wilderness to express it in a filmed shot or photograph in such a way that it has a personal spirit that lives beyond the finished work. In other words, for me it has to be real, or it just doesn’t work.
This is my curse because it’s getting to be a true bitch to find unscarred places anymore.
And apps that tell people how to find “secret places” with perfect GPS coordinates might just spell the end to all that is mysterious and sacred in this world. Real adventures will simply go the way of the dinosaur as every square inch of the Earth is carefully mapped so that you can easily just follow in someone else’s footprints… literally.
So I blew out of Mesa Arch and scooted down to the overlook (also a mass-of-humanity scene) then marched down the trail a ways and for a brief few moments had this spot to my own. I quickly found my moment, snapped the shot and then within about two minutes it was all over… people again.
So I’m not going to lie… this moment of blissful solitude lasted about three minutes, all told. And it was a wonderful three minutes!
Good Thoughts- Gary Orona
More of my insanity at the GARY ORONA GALLERY.