Arches National Park Photo Workshop 2024
Arches National Park is one of America’s most iconic national parks. The park features hundreds of pinnacles, rock fins, balanced rocks, and over 2,000 natural red sandstone arches, including the world-famous Delicate Arch. For our photo workshop, we planned to photograph several of these rock formations both day and night.
During the week of our Arches photo workshop, an extensive rotating weather system stalled over the southwestern portion of the country, which meant any weather forecast wasn’t very accurate and subject to change within hours. This made it challenging for me to plan and reschedule our photo locations and times.
On the first day, my original plan was to have our group meet at 2:30 am and photograph the Balanced Rock formation with the Milky Way since it was close to the road. Unfortunately, the weather forecast showed that only the first night would be clear, so I decided to have us meet up earlier to make the hike to Delicate Arch. Since this is the “money shot” of the trip, I wanted to make sure the photographers had the best chance at clear skies to photograph the Milky Way with the Delicate Arch.
We took our time during the night hike, and once we arrived, we set up our tripods and captured the Milky Way as it rose above the Delicate Arch. The photographers agreed that we decided to hike to the Delicate Arch. Those who never photographed the Milky Way before were amazed at how dark the skies were without any city lights for miles. To our surprise, we were the only photographers during the night hours, so we could move around as we pleased. Once dawn arrived, we moved back to the classic overlook and set up for sunrise.
At sunrise, high-altitude clouds turned to dramatic reds and pinks, giving our photographers a second money shot at the exact location. Once sunrise was over, we hiked down and took a mid-day break. That afternoon, the cloud cover thickened, so we opted to go to locations that worked well in those conditions.
On the 2nd morning, we opted not to go out early for Milky Way photos due to the cloudy weather. The forecast called for clouds all day, but by midday, the skies cleared, so we met back up and spent the afternoon photographing several rocks and rock formations in excellent sunlight. After sunset, we took an extended break and planned to meet early the following day to photograph the Milky Way.
On the final morning, we met up around 3:30 am at the Balanced Rock and set up our cameras. The skies were mostly clear, so the photographers could photograph the Milky Way as it rose behind the rock formations. Once dawn started, we packed up our stuff and drove 10 minutes to our sunrise location, the “North Window.” With some luck and several cooperative visitors, we could photograph the Turret Arch through the North Window without anyone sitting or standing there. From there, we hiked around both Window Arches to capture different angles. Once we finished that hike, our photo workshop was over. For some of us, we drove to Monument Valley to set up for the next photo workshop.
