Silent Watcher

I had the bridge to myself, which still seems unlikely to me. This is the most tripodded spot in Zion at sunset and there was nobody on it but me. Early March, cold enough that most people had better ideas about how to spend the evening.

It was our first visit to the park — my wife and I had three nights at the Zion Lodge, one leg of a long circuit through the Southwest — and the first time I’d photographed this view. I’ve shot it many times since, but I didn’t know then that I would.

The light did the thing you hope for and rarely get. The sun sank into cloud near the horizon so the sky never coloured up, but before it went it put fifteen minutes of hard golden light on the Watchman and turned the whole formation orange.

Underneath the bridge the Virgin was running clear green, no ice, and the sand along the bank was a pale pink that sat against that green better than anything I could have arranged.