A New Year's Day sunrise, Arches National Park / Rebecca Latson

Happy New Year, travelers? I'm not sure, at this point in time - at least, regarding our National Park System. I am looking forward to the beginning of 2019 with some trepidation - particularly as I am planning a late January trip to Olympic National Park. I'm not too certain what I will find, but you can sure bet I will report on it. For the time being, allow me to reminisce on photographic experiences from 2018.

Last year was one heckuva year for me. January through April, I visited four national parks. In March, I announced my retirement from my Texas day job. Early July saw me at Mount Rainier National Park, and in mid-July, I moved lock, stock, and tripod up to central Washington. While movers shipped the heavy stuff, I loaded up my little Honda Fit and took a three-week road trip, visiting four different national parks, one national recreation area, and re-visiting one national park I’d traveled to in April. After my move, I drove to Mount Rainier National Park during late autumn because I now live a stone’s throw away.

Following a January tradition from the past few years with the Traveler, I’m posting my favorite 2018 shots, explaining the reason why I like each photo and how I captured the image. Usually, I only list five-to-seven favorites, but this year, I’m listing a favorite photo from each of those nine national parks and one national recreation area I visited. It’s not easy picking a single favorite photo from each park. The choice involved not only the composition itself, but the feelings evoked before, during and after clicking that shutter button.

Note: For all but two of these images, I used a tripod. You don’t have to use a tripod, and your camera or lens may have some sort of image stabilization (IS – Canon, VR – Nikon). There are, however, some techniques for which you really need a tripod, and in my opinion, tripods still offer much better stabilization.

A New Year’s Day sunrise, Arches National Park, Utah (January 2018)

I still remember my feelings while standing beside the tripod on that freezing January morning, hands in pockets, watching the sun rise above the La Sal Mountains and the red rock formations of the distant Windows Section. I don’t usually give in to sappiness, but my eyes teared up as I witnessed that gorgeous morning’s fireworks of color, just me, myself, and I. There was nowhere else I would rather have been on New Year’s Day 2018.

Although the sun shone on patches of the ground, it was still quite shaded as the horizon burst with light and color. I utilized my graduated neutral density filter (grad ND) to mitigate overexposure of the sky while exposing for the ground. Grad ND filters are round, square or rectangular pieces of glass or high-grade resin, clear on the bottom and gray-shaded on top. These filters come in different “densities” of gray and either screw on to the lens, slide into a holder in front of the lens, or can be hand-held flush against the lens. Online photo sites like BH Photo or Adorama carry a wide selection of grad NDs.

Did I use a circular polarizing filter (CPL or polarizer) for this shot, in order to increase color saturation and cloud texture? No. Polarizing filters work when they are at an angle to the sun, and for this shot, I and my camera were focused in the sun's direct path. Besides, there was no need to use anything to enhance the already-saturated morning colors. By the way, sunrise colors are most saturated right at the beginning of sunrise, and a little bit after the sun has climbed above the horizon line. After that, the colors tend to tone down a bit as the sun continues to rise.

Buck Canyon Overlook, Canyonlands National Park, Utah (January 2018)

Buck Canyon Overlook, Canyonlands National Park / Rebecca Latson

They don't call it "Canyonlands" for nothin'. Buck Canyon Overlook faces toward the east. Morning light provides interesting shadows and depth, right up to 10 a.m., which is when I captured this shot. If you want to see what is in the canyon, itself, you’ll need to stick around until noon, when the sun is directly overhead to light up those shadowed depths. By that time, though, the sky will be bright and cause exposure problems, and the atmosphere will have a hazy, blueish tint to it. Some of this can be corrected with your photo editing software; if you use Adobe Lightroom, the Dehaze slider tool works wonders. I chose a wide-angle view of this landscape, as probably most of you would. However, I added some perspective to the scene by framing the  canyon with portions of the nearby trees. I placed the canyon in the middle to “cut” right through the composition.

A frosty winter morning by the Virgin River at the Court of the Patriarchs, Zion National Park, Utah (February 2018)

A frosty winter morning by the Virgin River at the Court of the Patriarchs, Zion National Park / Rebecca Latson

I can still hear the burbling Virgin River during that crisp, cold, winter morning after the previous day’s snowfall. My boots with their attached traction devices crunched through the thin crust of snow and ice along the trail. Winter is an ideal time for photography at Zion National Park. The drier atmosphere creates sharp, clear, bright colors undimmed by pollution.

Although the sunlight was bright on the mountain peaks while the ground was still quite shaded, I did not use a grad ND for this shot, due to the uneven horizon. Instead, I exposed for the foreground as much as possible while trying not to blow out (overexpose) the sunlit peaks. During the editing process, I lightened the shadows to bring out the foreground scene, and darkened the brighter areas of the composition. I did use a CPL for this shot, since my camera was pointed at an angle to the sunlight.

Sunrise gilding the hoodoos at Upper Inspiration Point, Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah (July 2018)

Sunrise gilding the hoodoos at Inspiration Point, Bryce Canyon National Park / Rebecca Latson

I love all the national parks I have ever visited, but if I was pinned down to choose a favorite (I have several), then Bryce Canyon National Park is, indeed, one of my favorites. There are plenty of well-maintained trails that don’t require me to do any scrambling and there is no shortage of photo ops of the amazing and surreal geological formations.

I’d visited Inspiration Point during my April trip, but only discovered Upper Inspiration Point during my July visit. Despite heavy breathing and periodic rest stops along this short bit of steep-but-easy climb, the view was worth the effort. The walls, fins, hoodoos, and spires are already a bright pinky-orange color, and sunrise bathes the formations with a highly-saturated golden glow.

I handheld the camera for this shot. I was lazy (hey, it happens), and simply didn’t feel like lugging my heavy tripod with me up the steep trail that morning. The overlook itself is such that a close, non-fenced view with a tripod is problematic, unless you are tall, which I am not. Without a tripod, I was able to stand flush with the chain fence for an unfettered shot. When handholding the camera, I apply the tried-and-true “burst method” of keeping my finger on the shutter button for several successive clicks. The burst method ensures I get at least one clear, sharp image out of 4-5 clicks, but it does use up memory card space. Because I use this method for all my handheld shots, I carry plenty of memory cards with me, ranging from 16 GB – 128 GB.

I also used my circular polarizing filter (CPL or polarizer) since I was pointing the lens at a near-90-degree angle to the sun. Remember, polarizers work on the same principal as your sunglasses. When you rotate the CPL’s outer ring, you’ll see glare and reflections disappear, colors become more saturated and cloud and canyon textures become more pronounced.

Blue Mesa Trail Overlook, Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona (July 2018)

Blue Mesa Trail Overlook, Petrified Forest National Park / Rebecca Latson

A past Traveler article calls this national park an “open-air geology textbook." This now-arid view of a once lush, swampy, forested land existing millions of years ago, displays brilliant layers of blue, purple, and beige soils. After reading another Traveler article, I knew I wanted to start the morning of my only full day in this national park with a hike along the .8-mile paved Blue Mesa Trail, scattered with sections of bright red and gold petrified logs. The overlook, itself, where I captured this image, is a short distance along the narrow, paved, one-way drive from the trailhead, providing a great wide-angle vista of the Blue Mesa Trail and surrounding geology.

Because it was such a bright day and the light color of the formations and ground added to the brightness, I kept my ISO low (160), the lens aperture small (f/14), and I used my CPL and grad ND filters to tone down the brightness and bring out the colors.

A telephoto landscape of the Colorado River and Vermilion Cliffs, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Arizona (July 2018)

A telephoto landscape of the Colorado River and Vermilion Cliffs, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area / Rebecca Latson

As I drove U.S. 89A heading toward the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, I saw before me the Vermilion Cliffs. Vermilion was once my 10-year-old great-nephew’s favorite color – as much for the sound of the name itself, as the color, I think. So, I knew I just had to stop somewhere to get some shots of the cliffs. I saw the sign for Navajo Bridge and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Navajo Bridge is impressive, spanning the width of the Colorado River at that spot. So there, I stopped for my photos of canyon, cliffs and river.

The day was bright and clear and for this shot, I chose to use my 100-400mm telephoto lens for what I call a telephoto landscape. I wanted a closer view of the river and those brilliantly-saturated orange-red cliffs in the distance. This shot was also handheld. In truth, I usually handhold my telephoto lens out of habit from photographing erratic-moving wildlife.

A natural frame around North Rim scenery, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona (July 2018)

A natural frame around North Rim scenery, Grand Canyon National Park / Rebecca Latson

I visited the South Rim in 2009, but I'd been told the North Rim is quite different and definitely worth a looksee: a 1,000-foot elevation gain, a more alpine setting populated with plenty of trees, and fewer people. The canyon tops and walls are, indeed, more wooded, creating a bit of an issue for me, since I found it difficult to get a decent shot of just the canyon scenery. As such, I decided to use the trees as natural frames around the canyon vistas for this image and many others. The CPL was on my lens to bring out the colors and enhance the canyon textures of that early-evening scene.

The moon and blue hour at Oxbow Bend, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming (July 2018)

The moon and blue hour at Oxbow Bend, Grand Teton National Park / Rebecca Latson

Having never visited this national park before, I did not know Oxbow Bend was an iconic view. I just knew, as I drove past the jam-packed parking lot that summer afternoon, that I wanted to return for a sunrise session. Arriving pre-dawn, I staked out my location to capture the deeply-saturated blue hour colors while the moon remained within my camera’s viewfinder. The term “blue hour” refers to the blues, mauves, purples and pinks that bathe the sky and shade the landscape before sunrise and after sunset. Blue hour doesn’t really last an hour, though, so it’s always a good idea to have your tripod and camera set up beforehand to capture those fleeting hues.

This is one of those times when it’s wise to use a tripod for a pre-sunrise shot, as opposed to my previous Bryce Canyon sunrise image. It’s still dark enough that you can easily blur the scene even with lens or in-camera image stabilization, and you’d need to bump up your ISO, really slow your shutter speed, and open up that aperture, all of which can create noise (graininess) in the photo. By setting my camera on a tripod, I was able to keep the ISO relatively low (400) while using a faster shutter speed (1/25 of a second) and a smaller aperture (f/5.6). To prevent photo blurring, I used the 2-second timer (which I do with all my tripod shots) so the vibration from my finger pushing the shutter button is gone by the time the photo is actually captured. A wireless or corded shutter remote also work well for mitigating vibration blur.

Morning scenery at Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming (August 2018)

Morning scenery at Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park / Rebecca Latson

OK, I admit that every time I looked at textbook images of this Yellowstone location, I’d say “meh.” Mammoth Hot Springs did not look that interesting. I was wrong. I believe you must visit the site in person, however, to realize the depth of beauty within this area. Mornings are lovely. During the summer, if you arrive early enough, you’ll encounter few-to-no people on the boardwalks.

Landscapes all along the top of the boardwalk, particularly those nearing Canary Spring, are water-filled and you may choose to use a circular polarizer filter (CPL) … or not. A CPL, when the filter ring is rotated, will remove reflections from the water so you can see straight down into the shallow depths. However, if the day provides interesting clouds and sky colors, you might not wish to use a CPL, instead choosing to keep those reflections.

I used a wide-angle lens and deliberately included a part of the boardwalk. Why would I ruin an otherwise pristine scene with something manmade? The boardwalks create great leading line shots while adding a frame of reference and scale to your composition.

Reflection Lake reflections, Mount Rainier National Park, Washington (October 2018)

Reflection Lake reflections, Mount Rainier National Park / Rebecca Latson

A couple of months after settling into my central Washington home, I picked a beautiful autumn day to drive up Chinook Pass and on to the Paradise portion of the park. As a repeat visitor to Mount Rainier, I already knew where I wanted to stop for photos.The last time I visited Reflection Lakes was in July 2017, when snow and ice still blocked most of the trails and spread out over a portion of the lake where I now stood for the image above. On this day, however, the mirror-smooth water reflected The Mountain and line of trees on the opposite shore with nothing to block the full reflection. It felt pristine and soothing standing there with my tripod.

I included that little clump of golden grass and a part of the shoreline on which I stood as small foreground objects to add depth and perspective to the scene. Besides, I just liked that clump of grass partially brightened by the sunlight.

These are my 10 favorite photos from 2018. Each photo tells a story and evokes a feeling for both myself and (hopefully) my viewers. Do *you* have specific favorite shots from your own 2018 national park visits? Was it difficult for you to pick out just one favorite? How did you make the choice?

I’m an optimist, at heart, and hopeful for 2019 and whatever national park adventure comes my way.

What are your plans, travelers?