In my last blog I talked about my trip to some of the red rock country of Utah.  I wanted to expand on that with a story of what happened at the end of the day.  The weather did not really cooperate with us.  We had anything from thin to thick cloud cover the entire day.  In fact the thick clouds at the end of the day led to our decision not to go into Goblin Valley.  I was hoping to get it at sunset, but it didn’t look like we were going to get a sunset so we pressed on, heading into Hanksville for a bite to eat and a hotel room.  The food was good, but the hotels were full so we got on the road and headed back towards Green River.  Coming out of town I noticed a clearing of the skies off on the western horizon.  That told me I we would get a glimpse of the sun just before it went down.  I didn’t have a lot of time so I pulled off the road, across from some rock formations we had passed on the way into town and set up the camera.  I decided to setup a shot of my truck against the rocks for a possible advertisement shot.  I took a couple of preliminary shots to check out my composition and then waited for the light.  I included one of those shots to show you how boring the light was at that point.  If I was creating a portrait I would have had to add some light with flash to get some directional light and add depth to the portrait.  Anyway – while we were waiting for the light a policeman pulled over a speeder so I had to adjust the camera angle just as the light began to hit.  You’ll notice a big difference in the following images.  I included a black and white to show how it is just as important as in the color images.  The final shot of my son was made in a hurry, but it shows how light and shadow can be made to create the illusion of three dimension on a two dimensional surface.  It was a good lesson for him as I talked about what was happening.  He now knows that for this Utah photographer – it’s all about the light!