Desert Driving

Ok, I have a problem. I freely admit it. I'm a serial drive-a-holic.

You see, I love road trips, as does everyone else, but I seem to have this awesome inability to see the obvious over-confidence in my planning.

For this trip I went back to the deserts of southern Utah and northern Arizona, a land of red slickrock spires and the deepest blue skies you can ever imagine. I only decided to go on the trip at 2pm on a Thursday afternoon. By 4pm my flight was booked and I was ready to depart Friday night leaving me precious little preparation time which isn't all that smart when you consider that successful photography is pretty heavily based on being uber prepared and researched.

For the slideshow - click on the photo below.

Like a kid at a rock festival, I didn't want to hear the whole of the latest album by my favourite band. Rather, I wanted a greatest hits collection. In road trip planning talk, that meant not staying in one place for more than 1 day. And so I got on Google maps and plotted a ridiculous spiders web of exploration across the high desert.

Each day roughly consisted of being up at 6am, forgoing breakfast to get in place for sunrise, followed by 12 hours of driving and hiking to scout sunset locations and get my rental car as beat up and stained by orange sand as possible. After the sun disappeared each night, I'd skip yet another meal to drive for 5 hours in the darkness to get to my next spot where I'd randomly select a cheap motel, work on the days images on my laptop, then retreat to a shitty and uncomfortable bed where I'd shiver/overheat in cycles before waking again at 6am totally unrested and start all over again...

I averaged a ridiculous 600km per day for the duration of the week, often taking an 8 hour detour in the wrong direction just to get a single shot (see Horseshoe Bend photo in the slideshow).

And so, I return, tired, beat up and weighing about 10lbs less than when I left. But fuck me it's fun to be that free and just go wherever I want, whenever I want...

I hope you enjoy the shots.
Oli