Very early last Tuesday morning, July 7th, weather conditions seemed perfect; it was 57 degrees here in the Wind River Canyon; it would end up at 102 degrees!! The new camera with great resolution, and the bazooka-sized telephoto lens would be put to the ultimate landscape photography test. I had planned on imaging a natural-rock formation that had never been photographed like this before!
It seems impossible that such an unusual and unique natural-rock formation had never been photographed like this before now, but it hadn't. Access to the immediate area is severely restricted because it's inside the Wind River Indian Reservation and the difficulty in even finding the stone-arch.
The genuine truth is, so few people even know it is there at all! Even people old enough to have known Moses personally do not know of the stone-arch in the Wind River Canyon. It's far away from the highway, far up on the canyon's rim, and if you don't know where it is, you will never see it for yourself; yes, it's that difficult. You also need a big telephoto lens and a camera with resolution that until recently has been wildly expensive.
For those of you that roast in the heat of summer, morning temperatures like these in the mountains are quite normal; it's easy to enjoy such beautiful mornings; a good time to accomplish something you love. I woke up my wife, she wanted to go with me; hurry up!
Grabbing the big camera bag (a large contractor's tool bag) and the heavy aluminum tripod, we headed out the door. We were going to "Windy Point" which is less than two miles away from our cabin. I had a feeling this was going to be a perfect morning in the canyon.
Having been to this spot many times before now, knowing about where I should set the tripod up. The traffic was minimal because of the pandemic and work on a bridge nine miles to the north of where we were working; conditions were perfect. Some fluffy clouds moved in and made the shoot play out just the way I could have hoped.
Here's a tip----I used the touchscreen display and manually focused the lens @ 10x on the camera-back to get a more perfect picture at such a dramatic distance; I shot 67 images, this was my favorite. Eye-of-the-Needle, Wind River CanyonRare-natural rock arch in the Wind River Canyon in the state of Wyoming. 1st time ever close-photographed! This obviously isn't your usual natural stone/rock arch. The first question that came up years ago when I first shot this arch was, "How did this happen?" It appears that a huge spire came down at exactly the right angle....or maybe something just fell away; your geology guess is as good as any other. It definitely is a special geologic event worth seeing for yourself; here's how......
Windy Point is the big, round, dangerous corner in the canyon that seems endless in bad weather; now stop at the pull-off to the north of this; bring binoculars, but you can see it without aid. Now look way up and west; you've got it! Few people have ever even viewed this weird arch. A wonderful teacher was killed by a truck carrying 30,000 pounds of apples @ Windy Point in the winter many years ago; so be careful!
Camera: Canon EOS M6 Mark II w/EVF
Lens: Tamron 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC G2
Software: Canon Digital Photo Professional, Topaz Labs AI Sharpen, Adobe Lightroom
Shot @ 600mm, the equivalent of over 19x power that the camera sees.
Now, get out of the house and get some fresh air. Be careful, be safe, be smart.
All content is protected by copyright and all rights to content are.....mine. Written by Michael John Balog, resident of the Wind River Canyon in the state of Wyoming.
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