Monument Valley

Hey Everyone!

I know, I know, its been quite a few months since I have posted a blog, and I hope this one will make up for lost time… This entry is about the trip to Monument Valley I went on with my boss Moose Peterson and his wife Sharon. The main reason for the trip was to film some lessons for KelbyTraining.com (hopefully coming out soon!) so along with us we had 2 video guys, Eddie and Adam. Here is probably the most random blog you will ever read:

WARNING: The photos you are about to witness are straight out of my camera (except for the panos) and no pixels have been harmed in the making.

Day One:

We were just supposed to be relaxing and playing “tourist” our first day of filming in Monument Valley.  But because Adam, our film dude was so excited about doing some filming ASAP, we ended up scouting a couple of locations.

Our first stop was at John Ford Point which was a just a turn off Valley Drive. Where the view up there was just beautiful; behind you, are some tables set up with Navajo handcrafted jewelry, and in front of you, nothing but open air and beautiful red rocks.

To the left there is a rock formation called “The Three Sisters” and off a little further to the right are the “Mittens” (in the photo above, you can only really see one of them)

Just as we were leaving, we decided to take a look at some of the gorgeous handcrafted jewelry they had at their booths, which is when this very characteristic Navajo, named Albert came out to greet us. We ended up buying some jewelry, and talking with him for a little while, and he told us some incredible Navajo stories and even said a little touching blessing to us, which had some of us (me and Sharon) in tears.

We then continued on to our next stop which ended up being “Mexican Hat” but on the way there, all of a sudden it started to become windy, all the beautiful clouds were blown away and there was nothing but a grayish-white sky left above us, and believe it or not, it was raining RED!

We tried our best to make a lesson out of the situation…

But it became so cold, so windy and so wet, that we ended up sitting in the car for a bit to see what the weather was going to do for us.  We drove down, what is probably now a custom made Moose path, and found a better location to shoot where it was easier to hear Moose talk.

Which was also where I happened to find this rock, just…uh, randomly…uhm, sitting there… that, err… happened to have mine, and my boyfriend, Aaron’s initials on it…yeah, that’s it!

While trying our best to hurry and head back to our wonderful, comfy rooms back at our hotel called The View we noticed out the car window that there was some dramatic color coming back into the sky, and the red rain was starting to subside.

LESSON TIME!! I tell yah, that Bossman of mine can sure turn just about anything into a lesson…

So he finds this butte, (pronounced “beaut” not “butt”) with some great dramatic skies, with little trickles of the sunset.

I just couldn’t believe the rollercoaster weather it was! So with already a couple of great, unexpected lessons taped, we headed back to The View and went back up into our rooms to rest up for our real filming day, day two.

Day Two:

Now I don’t know if it was Albert’s blessing the day before, or what, but the light was great, the weather was awesome, and the clouds were fantastic!

So with these amazing conditions we continued on down the road, but we had to take advantage of this amazing drive, by taking some B-Roll with this awesome little camera called a GoPro. We drove through all sorts of curvy and bumpy dirt roads with beautiful clouds above us.  The footage from this little tiny camera was just insane!

(Keep an eye our for some GoPro footage – someday)

On our topsy-turvy drive with the GoPro cam we found a really cool… Submarine? Wait, wha? Well, actually I saw a T-Rex dinosaur! Whatever the case, we did some shooting there as well.

I couldn’t believe all the different objects and shapes were finding in all the rock formations. It was so much fun being able to use our imaginations to try and see what we could find and to try and make everyone else see the same things.

What do you see?

I imagined a big catchers mitt catching a big fluffy baseball, and a humongous chimney with the cleanest, whitest smoke I have ever seen.

We realized that we were starting to get carried away with all the different things we were coming up with for these rock formations, so we hopped in the car and did a little more scouting, a little more shooting….

Oh and I saw a dead cow on the side of the road.

Come on you would take a pic too! R.I.P little (or maybe big) cow.

Once we got back to The View I was pooped! BUT Moose had lent me one of his Nikon MC-36 (used for startrails) that I had wanted to try. And because the room I was staying in had a balcony with such a great view, hence the hotel name, I decided to set up and try to do a startrail.
Well without thinking about it, I set up and let the camera run, not realizing that when doing these startrails, it takes up a sh*tload of battery power. Also, there were still clouds in the sky all night that came out in my image you see below, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it looks better to have a clear sky. I guess for a first attempt with not really knowing much about how to do them, it didn’t turn out too bad…

Lesson learned: Set up with fully charged battery or in some cases, plug camera into power outlet for constant power, and secondly, check the cloud radar! Meh, there’s always next time!

Day Three:

We jumped right into filming, starting at a place what Moose thought was called, “Horse’s Butt, err no, Horse’s Wash….umm??” but was actually called Hobb’s Wash. Silly bossman! Anyway, Hobbs Wash was a really neat place that we literally drove right by and just had to turn around to do some sort of lesson/take photos.

Again, the clouds in the very blue sky were just gorgeous!

For some reason, the weather, the atmosphere was so close to perfect, that everything around us seemed surreal, almost like a movie set.

After taking in everything around us, and reading a bit of history about Hobbs Wash, we continued on to find another great location to shoot.

Now, one of the things I love about Moose, that never ceases to amaze me, is the fact that he will do anything to get that one click, even if it means having to go down roads that maybe he shouldn’t, or even just creating his own paths. BUT when the light is great, there are great clouds, and just great photo ops. I think the risk of getting a tap on the wrist is totally worth it!

I think this one we discovered was called “Boundary Butte”.

After stepping in enough wild horse poop while trying to photograph some behind the scenes, we hopped back in the car and headed to our next; and what I think was one of the coolest looking, places.  Ship Rock, which to me should have been named “Cool-mystic-gothic-castle-looking Rock” I don’t know, what do you think?

Now that was shot with my 70-200 lens, because as you can see below, we could only get so close, after all, we ended up finding this place driving through a very small community, but we didn’t want to trespass through anyone’s lawn… Who knows what the gun laws are there… Yikes!

The wind began to pick up, and things started to rumble around us, and then we realized that it was actually just our stomachs growling and rumbling, and it was time for some food!

After eating, we headed back to the hotel, but made a pit stop just a little further down the road, from where we were staying and did a quick sunset shoot with the Mittens. Everything at that moment was just gorgeous, and almost breathtaking.

I love the reds!

Day Four:

I’m not really going to give away too much of what we did on our last day filming, because a lot of the stuff are surprises for Moose’s viewers. But I will leave you with these small sneak previews, and you’ll just have to wait for the video to come out to see the rest for yourself! Hah!

Bonus Day – Day Five:

Our last day, the film boys headed back to home base, and Moose, Sharon and I, got to spend a whole day driving around and shooting in Monument Valley.  We were fortunate enough on our last day to get our own personal tour guide. Yep, you can get tour guides there, but unfortunately, not at all like the one we had… Albert, who we met during our trip, introduced us to his brother, Bruce; who by the way you will be seeing in Moose’s training video, and you may have already seen him in some Hollywood movies that you know.

But on our way to meeting with Bruce and his lovely wife Sarah, we passed this one rock, that caught my eye, and I was thinking to myself, “Haha! This rock looks like a little man pointing at me!” and the more I stared at it and the further down the road we drove, I realized “Holy sh*t! It’s Owl Rock!”

Now, you’re probably wondering, what the helk is so exciting about this one rock?!

Well, Sharon had bought a book about Monument Valley, that had all these different rock formations, including Owl Rock, and for some reason we made it almost like a mission to try and find this darn rock. Well with all that had been going on, it was kind of put out of our minds, so when I found it, I think I yelled out so loud that I may have scared Moose a little.

After snapping a few shots, we hopped back in the car and continued towards John Ford Point where Bruce was waiting for us.

Oh! By the way, every so often you will drive down the roads of Monument Valley and see little jewelry booths like this one:

I highly recommend stopping at any of these stands, because it’s just incredible to see all the handcrafted things they sell, and they sell all of it at really great prices!

Once we got to John Ford Point, we were welcomed by all of the family, and they waved goodbye as Bruce and Sarah joined us in our car to start our personal off-road tour! Our first stop, which was probably one of the coolest things I have ever experienced, was meeting an elderly woman by the name of Susie Yazzie, is well known by the all of the Navajos and others who, through out the years that have visited Monument Valley. She demonstrated her weaving skills and even did a traditional Navajo hair bun for Sarah.

For a lady in her 90’s I couldn’t believe how quickly her hands were moving, and how strong they were. It was almost memorizing watching her unique weaving methods.

She came out just for us, and we didn’t want to take up to much of her time, so after taking a few clicks, and putting some money in her tip box, we exited the mud Hogan, and jumped back in the car…

Well not before saying “Hi!” to the cute little pug puppy… Yah know, I just can’t help it! I love dogs!

Even as a kid I don’t think I have ever had to use as much imagination as I did when we were with Bruce and Sarah. During this drive we stopped so many times to look at all the different formations and stories that Bruce was showing us, like this one:

What? Don’t see it? Ok, well then here is my crappy sketch over the photo of what you are supposed to see.

It’s an eagle! But if you look at the top one again, you might also be able to see the Navajo head. I guess it’s all on how you look at it.

And it’s not everyday you to see a sleeping dragon!

Our next stop was at “Sun’s Eye” and again, depending on how you look at it, you might be able to figure out just why it is called that.

If you click here you can see a photo that moose took of me shooting the last shot.

We were then taken to another formation, which I believe is called “The Ear of God”

Bruce then told us to follow him to see something neat… He brought us away from “The Ear of God” and said, “Stand here, on this ‘X’, and look!”

And when you look across from where you are standing on this “X” you see this:

Now in my opinion, I think shooting through trees or branches is pretty lame. BUT I thought it was great of Bruce to show us this kind of thing, knowing we are photographers. So to humor him, I took that quick shot.

I could honestly sit here all day and show you photos among photos of all the different things that I saw, along with the stories behind them, but instead I will just show you a few more random photos I took just walking from one side of a place, to the other.

Amazing huh?

The next location we were taken to was a very special moment for us. We were taken to “The Navajo”. You would have to be blind not to see this formation created naturally over time with erosion and the falling rain.

And just when I thought that this day couldn’t get any better, Bruce sat him self down on a rock beside Sarah and said “I would like to sing some songs for you” So with Sharon, Moose and I on one rock, and Bruce and Sarah across from they sang us some traditional Navajo songs.

I couldn’t believe that these people we had just met, felt comfortable enough to share such great memories with us and have helped us create new ones. That moment brought tears to my eyes.

All week I had been hearing Moose talk about “Totem Pole Rock” and so I knew it was going to mission of his to try to find and photograph these rocks. Well with the help of Bruce, and his ability to let us go off-road to where no one is really allowed to drive, we were able to get pretty darn close to these “totem poles”

Bruce was a pretty funny guy. He told us that to him, the main “Totem Pole Rock” looked more like E.T.’s finger, and he even made the little alien voice saying “E.T. phone home!!” Too funny!

Oh, and I found a cool tree!

After a whole day of adventures with Bruce and Sarah showing us around, Moose was nice enough, (Moose nice? Hehe.) to take their portrait together to send to them later.

As happy as this made them, and as happy as we were to be there, we realized that the time had come to take our personal tour guides, but more importantly, our new friends back home. So we were saying our goodbyes, and was then corrected by Sarah who said, “It’s not goodbye, it’s see you later!” Which made us feel very welcome to go back and visit again. They are two people I will definitely never forget.

I had one of the best times of my life on this trip to Monument Valley; where great memories were created, new friendships were made, and a lifetime experience that not many people will ever get to do. And this whole trip wouldn’t of been possible if it weren’t for two very important people in my life.

Moose and Sharon, I thank you both for letting me experience something so incredible.

None of the photos you have seen, even come close to justifying the amazing experience I had, or that you will have if you are ever fortunate enough to visit this magical place.