Utah

The following is an excerpt from my upcoming blog post about my 2022 trip to Utah:

​

"As the calendar rolled over to 2022, I began to ponder where to go for a spring photography trip. I had been - still am - pining for a return visit to Yosemite, but that's quite a drive from my home base in north Texas and, given my recent change of employment status from "Corporate Cog" to "Starving Artist," I was looking to free camp... which meant national forests or BLM areas where you have the freedom to do so.

​

After randomly floating the topic of a road trip to my buddy and podcast host-extraordinaire, Matt Payne, he threw out southern Utah as an option given the timeframe I mentioned. And thus, an idea began to form.

​

Now, as my DFW-based friend Jon Fischer knows, I'm not a heavy planner. I prefer to have a rough idea of where I'm going but, in terms of breaking a trip down to specific locations, times, etc. I don't have the desire to do so. Partly because I prefer to go with the flow, partly because I can't be bothered.

​

It's one thing if there are specific reasons for a more buttoned-down trip, but I have found that, creatively, I operate best when I go where the wind takes me.

​

I had general areas pinned on my maps and had downloaded some hikes via Alltrails. Otherwise, I planned to show up, find campsites based on where I ended up on any given day (I did do some research on various free-camping sites and apps, although I found they are often lacking), and decide upon shooting locations based on weather and clouds (and midday scouting).

​

The confession I have to make here and now is, thankfully, Jon joined me on this trip and brought along a book, Photographing the Southwest by Laurent Martres, that proved extremely useful in finding locations that were not only worth visiting, but also within our out-of-shape physical capabilities. 

​

I likely could have found the same locations via other means, but the book was definitely handy; add a tick mark in the "lessons learned" column for this trip. There's always something..."

​

As noted above, I'll be releasing a more in-depth breakdown of my photography trip to Utah on my blog, in which you'll be able to read more about my Utah experiences, but also be sure to click into each image as I've included individual backstories for each.

​

I hope you enjoy! As always, you can use the button below to find my Utah collection in my store to purchase prints of any images available there (or, if not available in the store, contact me about purchasing a print of another image... it's possible that I just haven't had a chance to complete the print proofing process and I can bump it up in my to-do queue).