I don’t remember exactly how the idea of a road trip to the American West first came to me. I was 14 years old at the time and I started looking at landscape photographs taken in Utah. I was immediately sold. But of course, at the time, I did not have the resources nor the experience to undertake such a road trip - not to mention parental consent! Many years later, after two years without travelling, everything lined up. I planned everything months in advance. I was going to travel with a fellow photographer, Raphaël Pachebat, for fifteen days to eight select locations in the Western United States in my lowered, two-door coupe car (ideal of course for this type of trip...) I had to be back in Montreal by June 16 for the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix. 

June 3 – Grand Prismatic Spring, Wyoming. ISO 100 – 4.49 mm – f/2.8 – 1/800 sec
After two days of driving, we got stuck in Billings, Montana. One of the axle bearings of my car was completely worn out and had to be replaced. The dealership had to order the part. Thirty hours later, we were back on the road. We arrived just in time in Yellowstone National Park. It was cloudy and rainy, but luckily, the sun shone for a few minutes and Raphaël managed to capture this beautiful picture of the Grand Prismatic Spring. We can see the bright bands of orange, yellow, and green ring the deep blue waters in the centre of the hot spring. These colourful layers are owed to many species of thermophile bacteria living in the gradually cooler water around the spring (Peglar, 2021).

June 4 – Blacktail Ponds, Wyoming. ISO 64 – 16 mm – f/11 –30.0 sec
After the sun set, we left for Grand Teton National Park. We arrived very early in the morning, at around 2 AM. After the sunrise, the sun gleamed onto the Teton Range mountains for a few more hours. I explored the area and finally found the right composition at the Blacktail Ponds, wet meadows along the Snake River, home to a wetland community. Islands of pines take root on glacial moraines that ring glacial lakes. These ponds were named for “blacktail deer” (mule deer) that roam the area. The mountains gently reflected onto the calm water of the pond and the trees around it had this soft, yellow colour so characteristic of the morning golden hour. 

June 5 – Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah. ISO 100 – 16 mm – f/16 – 1/30 sec
The next day, we headed for the Bonneville Salt Flats. The salt flats are about 19 kilometres long and 8 kilometres wide and are comprised mostly of sodium chloride (table salt). Like the Great Salt Lake, the Salt Flats are a remnant of Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, which covered over one third of Utah from 10,000 to 32,000 years ago (Bonneville Salt Flats Special Recreation Management Area (SRMA) | Bureau of Land Management, n.d.). On our way there, driving west on i-80, the scene was bizarre and surreal. We were entering a storm, but the sunlight from miles away reflected onto the white salt in such a way that the light seemed to come from the ground itself. But as soon as we arrived at the rest area where we could park, the dark clouds disappeared, and two beautiful rainbows rose on the horizon. Curiously, the inner part of the rainbow appears darker in the photograph. This is unusual. Normally, the inner part of a rainbow is brighter because light is being focused by the raindrops at the centre of the rainbow. In the case of a double rainbow, the sky is usually darkest between the primary and the secondary rainbows, a region called Alexander’s dark band, as much of the light between these two bows is redirected to the inner band (Light Sky Under Rainbow, n.d.). Just a few minutes after we arrived, the rainbows disappeared. 

June 6 – Zion Canyon, Utah. ISO 64 – 16 mm – f/8.0 – 1/60 sec + ISO 64 – 35 mm – f/11– 271.0 sec
The following day was spent in Zion National Park. Zion Canyon is part of the Navajo Sandstone Colorado Plateau (a formation easily eroded and very porous) that was cut by the North Fork of the Virgin River to become a canyon (Zion Canyon - Wikipedia, n.d.). We arrived early in the evening. I waited for the perfect moment, when the sun just reached the edge of the canyon, which towered more than 670 metres above the canyon floor. Sunbeams can be seen scintillating over the canyon. After sunset, I remained at the scenery for an additional two hours without moving my camera that I had mounted on a tripod. When it was completely dark, before moonrise, I captured the light trails left by the cars exiting the park, which you can see if you look closely at the centre of the frame. I superimposed the pictures in post-production to create this striking image. 

June 8 – Upper Antelope Canyon, Arizona. ISO 800 – 16 mm – f/5.6 – 1/13 sec
The Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons are located on private land within the Navajo Nation. Named for the herds of pronghorn antelope that once wandered the region, they were shaped by water and wind erosion for millions of years (Antelope Canyon | Visit Arizona, n.d.). We began the tour around 3 PM. It was a very warm day in Arizona, but the temperature inside the canyon was much more comfortable. In the afternoon, sunlight bounces on some of the walls, which can reach up to 36 metres high, giving some of the rooms a soft, warm glow, and the shaded areas, a distinctive, purple hue. Later that night, we headed for the Navajo Nation’s Monument Valley Tribal Park.

June 9 – Monument Valley, Arizona/Utah. ISO 64 – 28 mm – f/8.0– 1/60 sec
It was very important to me to photograph the Monument Valley in all its glory, so I decided we would be there both for sunrise and sunset. The sunrise was incredibly peaceful, and the sky was lit up by orange and pink clouds. But the lighting on the foreground was simply not quite right. Fortunately, sunset saved the day. This day was the warmest of our trip. With absolutely no shade anywhere in sight, we spent the day sitting around in the scorching heat with a few friendly dogs that came to see us. As the sun began to set, we returned to the location. At last, the evening sun illuminated the monuments – sandstone that tower at heights up to 300 metres (Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park| Navajo Nation Parks & Recreation, n.d.). They radiated a magnificent, burnt orange colour. It was perfect. 

June 11 – Great Sand Dunes of San Luis Valley, Colorado. ISO 400/200 – 16 mm – f/5.6 – 20.0 sec + ISO 6400 – 16 mm – f/4.0 – 30.0 sec
On June 10, we arrived at the Great Dunes National Park in the middle of the day. I found the way these dunes where formed intriguing and very interesting. “Great Sand Dunes is located in the Rio Grande Rift where subsidence creates a depositional basin […]. Prevailing winds from the southwest blow across the San Luis Valley transporting sand to the Sangre de Cristo mountain front where the wind regime becomes complex and vertically growing dune forms develop. Fluvial processes also shape Great Sand Dunes […] by moving sand in the direction opposite to the wind. Equilibrium between the two transport mediums causes the deflection of streams flowing around the dune field where erosion creates large dune forms as the streams truncate the dune field.” (Valdez & Zimbelman, 2020).

I spent a good portion of the afternoon searching the right location to photograph these spectacular and impressive dunes. We settled near Colorado State Highway 150, where we could see the entirety of the Great Sand Dunes. It was a cloudy, flat day and it did not seem like we were going to get any good shots. But eventually, at sunset, the sun peeked through the clouds and light rain began at the same time. This gave the sky some beautiful colours. I was ecstatic. Little did I know, the best pictures were yet to be taken.

At around midnight, we went to sleep, only to wake up two and a half hour later. I wanted to head back to the dunes, but this time, hike the dunes themselves. In retrospect, we should have gone in the dunes in broad daylight the day before, in reconnaissance. For the Milky Way to be visible, you need to photograph the sky after moonset, but more than an hour before dawn. On that day, moonset was at 3:20 AM, dawn was at 5:00 AM. This left us with a window of 40 minutes to photograph the Milky Way. But we arrived at 3:30 AM. 1.5 kilometres of fields crammed with cactuses, followed by a bushy forest and a river of murky water separated us from the 230 metres tall High Dune, the tallest sand dune in North America. Since the moon had set, it was pitch black. My phone had just died, so all we had to guide ourselves were the very subtle and distant shadows of the dunes. Carrying all of our heavy gear, we ran to the base of the dunes. Out of breath and without any water to drink, we began the extremely painful ascension of the dunes. We only had around 10 minutes left for the lighting to be just right. Hiking the dunes was strenuous and sand kept on coming in our shoes, crushing our toes. The further I climbed, the better the shot could possibly be, but I could see dawn creeping on me. I did not want to stop until I reached the very top of High Dune, which I finally did. It was breathtaking – almost as much as the hike. I rushed to install my camera on my tripod and press the shutter. Seconds later, I heard the distinct "click" of the mirror flipping back up, resounding in the valley's serenity. The screen on my camera illuminated and I knew this was it. The dunes had a dream-like, velvety blue hue, like I had never seen before. I took three pictures: the first one exposing for the Milky Way and the two that followed, for the dunes, to create a panorama. Physically, it was the farthest I have gone for a photograph. I am very lucky to be in my twenties, young and healthy! I could not have been happier with how this picture turned out.

In total, we spent just over 125 hours driving, travelling almost 11,000 kilometres in 15 days, and averaging more than 8 hours of driving each day. Big thank you to Raphaël, this would not have been possible without him.