Photo Story #1: Entering Monument Valley
For the last few weeks I have been thinking about adding another weekly series to highlight one of so many beautiful pictures I have taken on my travels. After all, why should panoramas have all the fun?
And yesterday, while I was spending heaps of time editing this photo I took as I was approaching Monument Valley, I finally decided to do it.
So I give you the very first Photo Story - a cool picture and a little "behind the scenes" scoop on it.
After I spent a full day in Page, AZ checking out the Lower and Upper Antelope Canyons, I set out for Monument Valley and finally reached it just as the sun was starting to settle down for the night. My first glimpse of the majestic valley was this 1400 foot tall Agathla peak standing right next to the road.
I took some pictures as I was getting close to the peak as well as this this picture after I passed it and pulled off the road (scraping the bottom of my car as I did that - the pulloffs are terrible around here). I loved this view so much better because of lighting from the sun and the various colors of the hills under the main peak. But there was one problem - the fence that no matter how hard I tried, I could not get rid of:
So I spent a good hour yesterday painstakingly removing the fence, one tiny line at a time. Normally I do not process my pictures to that degree, but once I started it, I was determined to get the darn fence off of it and in the process, learned all about the various ways one can use Aperture's retouch tool not just to "retouch" but also "clone" the various areas of a photo onto the undesired parts, producing a much more natural effect.
So what do you think? Was it worth it?