Lesser known locations of northern arizona

Lesser Know Locations

Along The Way

Agathla Peak

Photographed with a Canon EOS D30 and 70~200 f/2.8L lens at ISO 100.

Monument Valleylies north of the town ofKayenta. As you drive northward toward the valley you pass a most imposing butte calledAgathla Peak. I’ve never been able to photograph it successfully.

On this trip, as we leftMonument Valleyto drive to theBisti Badlands, once again I drove pastAgathla(also known asEl Capitan) and wondered when the best time of day and what the best angle might be to properly photograph this monoliths. The light was flat and no unique perspective presented itself. We drove on.

After gassing-up inKayentawe turned ontoRte. 160and started driving eastward. Just a few miles later the sky started to brighten and we saw a small ragged butte in the foreground withAgathla Peakin the background. 

I’m tremendously pleased with this photograph. It provides a unique perspective and an image that I’ve never seen before from a spot along a relatively heavily traveled highway.

Navajo Power Plant

Photographed with a Canon EOS D30 and 70~200 f/2.8L lens at ISO 100.

About 3 miles east of Page, AZ on Rte. 98 is a large coal-fired power plant. It sits literally on top ofAntelope Canyon.This photograph shows steam from the evaporation towers rising from behind a dip in the road. Beauty in the face of ugliness.

Photographed with a Canon EOS D30 and Sigma 14mm f/2.8 lens at ISO 100.

Arizona abounds with surprising locations. While this looks like it might have been shot in the dunes area ofMonument Valleyin fact it was in a relatively unknown site which I’ll call, simply,Not Monument Valley. Like many such spots it’s on Navajo land. While traveling and shooting there isn’t trespassing (this spot is just off a public road), it is definitely not a tourist area and thus deserves to remain as undisturbed as possible.

To help give a context and scale to the location, this photograph by Steve Kossack shows me working at around the time that I took the photograph seen immediately above. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Photographed with a Canon EOS D30 and 28~35mm f/2.8L lens at ISO 100.

LikeMonument Valleythis location has buttes as well as substantial dunes. Unlike that more famous location, here it’s possible to photograph the buttesandthe dunes in the same frame.

Photographed with a Canon EOS D30 and 28~35mm f/2.8L lens at ISO 100.

Sometimes when I review my film (or as now, digital files) after a shoot I wish that I’d moved in for some detail studies. This time I saw that the very early morning light would create some fascinating abstracts and within a few minutes produced several images like this one. If you look at the central-right portion of the wider frame above you’ll see the area that I was concentrating on.

Photographed with a Canon EOS D30 and 70~200 f/2.8L lens at ISO 100.

Sedonais a very upscale town located about 2 hours north of Phoenix. The landscape around it is breathtaking and I hope to return and explore this area further another time.

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