Free Roaming Photography by Mike Cavaroc

Delicate Arch Under the Milky Way Galaxy

Delicate Arch stands below the Milky Way Galaxy in Arches National Park, Utah.

Note: This is a minimally processed photo. I’m on my laptop so the final version may or may not change in terms of processing once I’m back home.

Since I had never really gotten the chance to explore Arches National Park on my own before this trip, I wanted to make the most of it, and that meant spending a few hours at the park’s most prominent feature, Delicate Arch.

Despite it being photographed from virtually every angle and time of day, as well as not having any clouds in the sky that evening, I knew I wasn’t going to get anything groundbreakingly new, so I simply went up and enjoyed myself and took the best photos I knew how to do. I wound up meeting a couple of other photographers who were out to do the same thing, and we spent the next few hours shooting into night with a howling wind pounding us with a frigid wind chill.

My goal was to simply catch a nice sunset on Delicate Arch and then get the Milky Way Galaxy above it. While I got some nice sunset shots, it was the twilight shots I was much happier with, as was the case with Cathedral Rock just a couple of nights later.

Regardless, I was also happy with the Milky Way shot over Delicate Arch, and with some great company, it made navigating a new trail in complete darkness much more enjoyable.

Posted: November 22, 2011

Posted in Landscape | Tagged Arches National Park, Desert Southwest, Milky Way Galaxy, Natural Arches, Night, Utah
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Cathedral Rock in Sedona, Arizona

Cathedral Rock dominates the landscape of southern Sedona, Arizona.

Note: This is a minimally processed photo. I’m on my laptop so the final version may or may not change in terms of processing once I’m back home.

I’m currently in Phoenix, Arizona and I’ve discovered that it’s nearly impossible for me to take photos while in the Phoenix area. I had plenty of places I wanted to explore and go to while here, yet I find catching up with friends and going back to the way of life I had while I was here so much more appealing.

Suspecting this, I made a point to stop in Sedona, Arizona, just an hour or two north, so that I would make sure to enjoy my time there. For sunset, I wanted a great shot of Cathedral Rock, one of the area’s primary features. The specific spot I chose for sunset wasn’t bad, but I realized that it was the wrong time of year to get the best light (or any light) in the foreground as the last light of day stretched out onto the highest points of Cathedral Rock. As a result, as soon as the light had faded from it, I made my way up to another overlook that I had scoped out and began shooting into the dusk and twilight hours. In reviewing the shots, I was very happy with the soft ambient light reflecting from the fading daylight on the western horizon.

Posted: November 21, 2011

Posted in Landscape | Tagged Arizona, Desert Southwest, Mountains, Sedona
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Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park

Sunrise lights up the bottom of Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park, Utah.

Note: This is a minimally processed photo. I’m on my laptop so the final version may or may not change in terms of processing once I’m back home.

I’ve spent the last few days here in Moab, Utah, which I like to describe as a Jackson Hole in the desert. It’s a beautiful place with all kinds of outdoor activities, set in dramatically natural, sandstone carvings all over the landscape.

One of the more iconic spots is sunrise on Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park’s, Island in the Sky District. The high altitude of the landscape looking above the valley below is just high enough for the first light of day to illuminate the bottom of the arch, creating a unique glow hard to find in any other location.

Before Moab, I was in Hovenweep National Monument and also in Chaco Culture National Historic Park enjoying much more productivity on the trip. Given the time, I’m going to begin heading down to Phoenix from here to visit some friends and some sites I took for granted while living there.

Posted: November 15, 2011

Posted in Landscape | Tagged Canyon, Canyonlands National Park, Desert Southwest, Mountains, Natural Arches, Snow, Utah
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A Road Trip Mindset

The ruins at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Culture National Historic Park, New Mexico lie beneath a sun-lit canyon wall.

Sometimes, if you don’t go into a road trip with the right mindset, it can be just as stressful as staying home and working. Friends and I poke fun at people all the time for taking hurried vacations where we witness them arguing with each other and frantically trying to reach point B as quickly as they can, passing by amazing sights and experiences along the way.

Yet when I left on my trip last week, I was anxious to get to the southwest, so I blew right through western Colorado. Once I made it to southwestern Colorado, I began trying to dodge a snow storm a few days out and found myself jumping from one site to another in a hurried pace to make it farther south to warmer temperatures. All this took a rather large toll on the photography that I set out to do, as well as exploring new places.

While trying to get some work done in Albuquerque after cutting my visit to Chaco Canyon for the first time short, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to make it to White Sands National Monument before the sun set like I had hoped, and I wasn’t keen on camping in a snow storm. I then began to send out CouchSurfing requests and had nearly given up and decided to get a hotel for the night when a friend graciously offered up his cabin just outside of Taos. I had never been there, and I knew I probably wouldn’t make it there before the sun set, but nevertheless, he offered it to me as long as I needed, it was free and I felt like I needed a break to regroup. I immediately packed up and headed there to get my head straight.

It took a couple of days to recover from the stress that I had already induced, but eventually I came around to realizing that I’m on the road for an entire month! I don’t need to hurry nor try and dodge weather. I’m prepared, supplied and worst case scenario, I can go grab a motel in the middle of nowhere if I absolutely have to. Even if I were to get snowed in at a campground, I have the time to spare and that’d be a great excuse to do more photography.

Such is the case at the moment. I was expecting to be back on the road right now, but a forecast of a mere 3-5 inches of snow last night apparently turned into about a foot. With only 2WD up a remote road that doesn’t get plowed, I now have no choice but to either get frustrated and upset, or make the best of an extra day at my friend’s cabin. I’ve got snow boots, warm clothes and my cameras, so I think I’ll go outside and make the best of it.

It’s easy to lose sight of what’s important when you let factors that you can’t control affect your moods, such as weather. I certainly made myself guilty of it and as a result, looked back through the photos I had taken thus far on the trip and overall, wasn’t impressed. Your mood can, and will, affect your art. If you’re frustrated, grumpy and annoyed, your photos will reflect it. Overall, they won’t be that good and you’ll only get more annoyed when you look at them. Having the right mindset before going anywhere or even doing anything is something I always try to work on. When you’re carefree, loving your surroundings and going with the flow, it’ll show up in whatever you do.

As far as road trips go, of course not everyone has a month on the road, but at the same time, you don’t need a month. The most important thing is not to plan a vacation that includes more than you have time to realistically do. If you’re taking a week-long vacation, plan stuff for four days and leave three days open interspersed throughout the week so that you don’t feel so pressured to arrive at the next destination. That way you account for something interesting you didn’t think would be interesting, or something you didn’t even know would be there. If you really want to discover how to have the best vacation of your life, don’t make any plans at all. There’s always a place to stay, there’s always food to find and most importantly, there’s always something new to see that you would have never accounted for in the planning stages. Not having any plans gives you the freedom to discover the most exciting aspects of the places you’re visiting.

Posted: November 8, 2011

Posted in Article | Tagged Canyon, Chaco Culture National Historic Park, Desert Southwest, New Mexico, Ruins
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Cliff Palace Black and White at Mesa Verde National Park

Ruins at the Cliff Palace of Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado stand intact after hundreds of years.

Note: This is a minimally processed photo. I’m on my laptop so the final version may or may not change in terms of processing once I’m back home.

The Cliff Palace ruins at Mesa Verde National Park are a remarkable sight to see. For $3, I was able to take a quick tour of it led by a ranger providing all kinds of insight into its history. Unfortunately though, one of the pieces of information he gave us was that we could probably some of the last people to go near it.

He began to discuss the history on how it was built and that it simply wasn’t ideal for the long-term and that the entire structure itself is becoming very unstable. As a result, Mesa Verde National Park is currently considering closing Cliff Palace permanently beginning in the spring of 2012. As of November 4th, it’s currently closed for the season.

Interestingly enough, Cliff Palace itself only represents a fraction of the time that the inhabitants were there: roughly 80 years or so. The history that the rangers and archaeologists have pieced together is that they lived very well on top of the mesa for hundreds of years until they had consumed all of the resources there. They had hunted all the wildlife and damaged the soil to a point where their crops wouldn’t grow anymore. Where the town of Mancos, Colorado currently is, just to the east of Mesa Verde National Park, wars began breaking out when it became apparent that the last of the resources were becoming scarce. Those that lived on top of the mesa began to move into the cliffs where they couldn’t be found. But after roughly three generations (the average life-span then being 30-35 years old), droughts, wars and damage to the ecosystem eventually drove them out permanently.

One of the most interesting aspects in Mesa Verde National Park (in my opinion) is the Sun Temple. It was on one end of a network of towers that spanned 140 miles down to Chaco Canyon used as a means of communication. If you’ve seen Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King, then you’ve seen a good demonstration of this exact concept in action. It’s fascinating to think that even with primitive technology, they were still able to communicate nearly instantaneously to another civilization 140 miles away!

If you find yourself anywhere near southwestern Colorado, Mesa Verde National Park is absolutely worth the visit. Even if Cliff Palace does wind up closing permanently, there are an enormous amount of other ruins that are still open and just as exciting to explore.

Posted: November 5, 2011