What Is This Zion Reflection Photo And Where Is It?
Zion National Park is located in southern Utah and is one of the most visited National Parks in the United States. In recent years, the crowds descending on Zion have gotten insane. Most people flock to Zion Canyon for popular hikes like the Narrows or Angels Landing. While these hikes get all the press and attention, the east side of Zion has some stunning sights and fantastic photo scenes if you know when and where to look and hike.
This photo was taken on the east side of Zion National Park. To get there you’ll need to enter through the east entrance to Zion or drive through the Springdale entrance, drive up through the tunnel and look for a parking space about halfway between the tunnel and the east entrance. You’ll be away from the insane crowds here but will likely have a hard time finding a parking spot. There amount of parking on the east side of Zion in very limited.
What Is It Like To Travel To And Photograph The East Side Of Zion National Park?
With the recent massive increase in people flocking to Zion National Park in recent years, it has become almost nightmarish to go to Zion. Just a few years ago you could take a road trip, get a first come first served campsite and hike whatever you wanted without the need to get any permits.
Those days are long gone. If you want to go to Zion you’ll have to reserve a campsite, you’ll probably have a hard time parking almost anywhere after about 9:00am and if you want to hike something like Angels Landing you’ll have to pay to enter a lottery to try to win the chance to get a permit to hike Angels Landing. The good news if there is any, is that this mess is all centered around Zion Canyon. The east side of the park is less crowded, more peaceful and the colors and rock formations on the east side are REALLY awesome. Parking, however, is very limited.
Once you figure out how you are going to get to Zion and where you are going to stay the only thing you have to worry about is getting to the east side of the park. You’ll probably want to get there early to get one of the limited parking spots and might want to plan to stay there all day because parking spots will be difficult to get throughout the day.
Where should you park? Wherever you see formations like this. There is or was an area along the road on the east side of Zion National Park where bighorn sheep were frequently seen, often in the evenings. If you can find somewhere to park where you see desert bighorn sheep on the east side of Zion, that will be a great parking spot. There isn’t much in the way of marked trails in this section of the park. You’ll jut have to climb and wander around on the rock formations. Be careful! Some areas are quite steep and can be slippery when wet.
What Does It Take To Get A Wall Art Quality Photo On The East Side Of Zion National Park?
The most important thing to have when looking to get wall art quality photos on the east side of Zion is a decent camera and your imagination. This isn’t an area like the Watchman area of Zion where there is a standard photo shot where people go and pretty much all take the same shot to check it off their bucket list.
When you hike and photograph the east side of Zion National Park, it will be up to YOU to find and frame up the awesome spots. You’ll need to scan the landscape, envision how a chunk of that landscape will look in a 4×6 aspect ratio photo and setup your camera to capture it.
The rock colors on the east side of Zion are amazing. They look like cotton candy formations with lots of light pastels including pink and yellow. To an extent, the remind me of the colors you’d see out around The Wave or in Yant Flat down by St. George, Utah. There are lots of white and off-white areas too. There are interesting textures everywhere you look. The colors come to life a bit more in the late afternoon sun but can be pretty spectacular anytime.
While it can be scarce in the desert, water can really bring your Zion east photos to life. When it does rain in Zion, especially in the summer or anytime it is warm and sunny, water on the east side of Zion doesn’t often last very long. The rainwater does collect in the sandstone potholes some of which are pretty big. When that water collects in the potholes, it gives you the opportunity to get some incredible reflection shots that most people will never even think to get.
If you’ve gotten all the photos you can think of in Zion Canyon or would prefer to come home with a bunch of Zion photos that stand out or are at least much different than those everyone else has from Zion then pack your camera, some water, some food, your imagination and creativity and head to the east side of Zion. The best time to go is mid to late afternoon. If you can go the day after a heavy rainstorm you’ll be able to find a bunch of cool reflection shots like the one in this article.
What Is The Best Gear For Photographing The East Side Of Zion?
If you are heading out to the east side of Zion or Zion canyon on the other side, a standard DSLR or mirrorless camera will do the trick. You’d probably want lenses that would go from 17mm up to at least 100mm. A standard 24-104 Canon DSLR lens or the equivalent in another brand would work just fine for most shots.
A tripod is a good thing to have. If you’ll be shooting sunrise or sunset you’ll want to have a tripod to keep the camera steady in low light for longer exposures. During mid day at Zion, a tripod isn’t necessary but I’ve always found a tripod can help slow things down a big and help frame up the exact photo desired.
If you are over on the east side of Zion after a rainstorm, the potholes that contain water and facilitate the cool reflection shots will almost always be puddles on the ground. In order to get gt photographs with those puddles reflecting the surrounding sandstone features, buttes and mountains you’ll need to get the camera pretty low to the ground.
It can be tricky to hold a camera steady and frame up the exact shot you want when trying to hand hold the camera really close to the ground. A tripod can make this much easier. Add in a cable release or remote and it becomes even easier to keep the camera steady. If you will be using a tripod to shoot very low to the ground you’ll want to make sure the center pole with the tripod is fairly short so that you can in fact get the camera down low to the ground.
The final thing that will help, especially with the reflection shots is a circular polarizer. A circular polarizer will help to bring out the reflections in pools of water. It can also help remove them if you prefer. A circular polarizer can also help to make the colors of the landscape much more vibrant whether you are shooting reflection shots or not.
What Is The Story Behind Zion East Reflection Photo Print?
In May of 2015 I was out road tripping around southern Utah. On most of the western road trips I had grand plans to go all over the place. Every time I’d get to Utah I’d plan to spend a few days to maybe a couple weeks there at most. Many times that plan would go out the window because there is sooooo much to see, hike, experience and photograph in southern Utah. The spring of 2015 was no different.
In 2015, the Zion South Campground was a first come first served campground. There were no reservations required. Just drive up, get there early and claim a spot. That’s what I did and what I’d done many times before. I plopped down for about a week. During previous trips to Zion I’d remained mostly in Zion Canyon and didn’t explore the east side of Zion at all.
In May, the weather was still pretty cool. There was some rain. Most days were pleasant and warm enough to hike with light hiking pants and a t-shirt with a fleece jacket wrapped around my waste just in case in got cold later in the afternoon or evening.
After hiking most everything in Zion Canyon I decided to see what there was to see on the east side of Zion National Park. I’d driven through numerous times and even stopped a few. Those stops were generally to photograph the bighorn sheep that tend to wander around the east side of Zion from time to time. I’d looked around in wonder at the sandstone formations full of vibrant colors but never actually hiked out into the area.
On this day I went to the east side of Zion specifically to hike around the east side. Well, I wasn’t terribly concerned with the hiking but the photo opportunities that might be found among the sandstone mounds, hills and cliffs on the east side were the focus. I found a parking spot, put a few liters of water in the backpack along with a water filter. Along with the Canon DSLR and a couple fairly wide angle lenses, I took the Induro tripod and headed off into the wild landscape on the east side of Zion.
The previous night it rained. On this day it was clear. My hope was to find sandstone potholes full of water that would facilitate some cool reflection photos that would make good prints. At the lower elevations, the hiking was pretty easy but no scenes really jumped out at me.
Once I got up away from the road a bit, the hiking got a bit more challenging. As noted before there was no real trail here, at least nothing I was aware of. The higher I got into the rock formations of the east side of Zion, the more careful I had to be and the more attention I had to pay to the route taken up. The rock formations get steep. They get steep enough to slide down. It is often easier to climb up in areas like this that to find the way down.
Along the way I took some breaks to lay back, bask in the sun and enjoy the peace and quiet away from the crowds and madness of the main part of Zion in the canyon on the other side. After months on the road and a few days in the crazy crowds in Zion Canyon it felt incredible to find a spot to get away from everyone else. The peace, quiet, serenity and a light breeze in tandem with the warm sun felt incredible for the half day or so I spent exploring this area of the park.
As I got higher and higher into the rock formations on the east side of Zion, there were more and more potholes with puddles. Every single one provided an opportunity for ephemeral reflection photos that would evaporate in the next day or two. The trick was to find water filled pothole that were fairly high up, not too deep but still low enough to reflect some of the surrounding towering rock features on the east side of Zion.
I took a bunch with this one being on of the best. At first glance it looks like there might be a lake on the east side of Zion. This is merely a puddle in a sandstone pothole. Even while out hiking the day after a hard rainstorm, these puddles began to significantly evaporate as I was out looking for photo opportunities. With just a little evaporation, an island might appear in the pothole ruining or at least changing the reflection and blocking out a portion of distant sandstone features that could reflect in it.
As the light started to fade, it became time to head back down to the parking area. While none of this hiking was what I’d call difficult, some of it was up fairly steep rock faces on which one could easily lose their footing. A fall up there would likely entail a long fall or slide that would be hard to break. It took about an hour to get back down below the steeper and potentially dangerous sections high up in the rock formations on the east side of Zion.
There were so many good or even great photo opportunities here that I decided to try to find and explore another part of the east side of Zion the following day.
In What Formats Is This Zion East Reflections Photo Print Available?
If you’d like this print hanging on your wall, it comes in print sizes up to 40×60 inches. If it will hang in an area with diffused light, most any print will look good. If you prefer really vibrant colors then something with a more reflective and vibrant would look awesome. This would include metal, acrylic or acrylic prints as well as metallic or glossy paper prints and glossy canvas prints.
There are a number of home decor items available including bathroom furnishings like shower curtains a towels. Sherpa fleece blankets are super cozy and look great on a bed or sofa. Throw pillows make nice accents as well.
If you’d like something you’ll use on a daily basis, this print comes on cel phone cases, high quality canvas tote bags that make great shopping bags and a variety of apparel including t-shirts and sweatshirts.
If you’d like to piece together your own print, there are 500 and 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles that will keep you or a gift recipient busy for hours assembling the scene you see in this article.
Leave a Reply