Picture-Perfect Parks National Parks Prove To Be Perfect Places To Combine Love Of Outdoors And Photograhy

It’s the question everyone seems to ask me: What’s your favorite park?

I guess that’s what comes of photographing national parks and monuments for more than 3-1/2 decades.

My usual response is to paraphrase the old Irish saying: If I can’t be in the park I love, I love the park I’m in.

Having diplomatically evaded the first question, I’m ready for the next: What’s your favorite picture? I have as much difficulty with that question as I do with the first, and for pretty much the same reason.

But for those who share my love of the outdoors and photography, I’ve chosen five national parks, each of which, in its own way, has a special appeal for me. Not coincidentally, each presents opportunities for pictorial and geographic diversity.

Canyonlands National Park in Utah may be the best for color. It has intense reds, maroon, magenta, a color that leans toward mauve and even some gold.

I like to be out and ready to shoot early - very early - from just after first light, right through sunrise, and again toward sunset. This is where I like to work. Between dawn and dusk, the sunlight can be garish, demanding.

Sunrise and sunset generally provide soft, ambient light in which subtleties in shapes and form emerge, and colors come out more saturated and impressive.

The red rock country, the rims, the lay of the land - Canyonlands is very primeval. It’s like the Grand Canyon, only more accessible, and as with the Grand, the Colorado River is the spirit and soul, determining the shape of things.

Another good time for photos is in the rain. Some nice things happen in the light of wet, gray weather, especially in Canyonlands, with all its color. Rocks take on a polished look; tonal differences and color saturation is best in the subtle light. Then, too, you have the possibility of surprises, like a rainbow.

Counting from when I was a kid and had my first camera, I’d say I’ve shot in Canyonlands probably 50 times - and I still haven’t captured it. There are places I haven’t even touched. I just keep going back, never quite finding what I see in my mind’s eye, looking for that timeless moment, the feel, the sense of the place. It just hasn’t happened yet. But it will; I just know it will.

Bring a wide-angle lens and one slightly longer than normal, perhaps a 90mm. A 135mm to 200mm lens would be handy for distant detail or maybe to catch a passing eagle. If you have a tripod, you can use slow shutter speeds for more depth of field. Don’t forget a polarizing filter to increase color saturation. In the red rock country, I use a slight warming filter, on the amber or gold side. And of course, take plenty of film so you’ll be ready for the unexpected.

The photographer looking for drama and moodiness should head to Acadia National Park in Maine. Here, weather is often the star. It can be absolutely ferocious, and that brings the ocean into play, with waves pounding the remnants of an ancient mountain.

I like to be out in the middle of it, in the hard-driving rain. Of course, you have to protect your equipment - sometimes I even carry a large umbrella - but it’s worth the limits this puts on your movements.

Things happen within me during a storm. It helps me get in tune with the place, to get a sense of it and get involved. A storm registers the essence of the place, and if the waves are up, I get really excited.

Besides the natural elements, another of Acadia’s appeals is manmade: Real, working fishing villages. I can still picture fog rolling around lighthouses or fishermen in their boats, cruising around and checking their lobster traps. It’s very nostalgic and it makes Acadia a mixed park - man and nature.

Bring a wide-angle and a telephoto. By all means, protect your camera from the salty ocean spray, which can damage the camera body, lenses and especially electronic systems. Be there in spring for the delicate blooms; and in autumn for the color.

Big Bend National Park on the Rio Grande in Texas is soothing, with wide open spaces. Here you have vast expanses, quiet and the feeling of being alone. This isn’t loneliness, mind you, but being alone in a landscape.

That’s when you have to get out of the way of the photograph. Don’t be too bold with rocks and having things in your face. Just let the delicate things happen, as when a cirrus cloud passes over and picks up the glow of evening or of dawn.

Daybreak is one of my favorite times to shoot, especially at Boquillas Canyon and the Sierra Del Carmen mountain range with the river below, just picking up the reflection of first light.

To get the feeling of distance, I hike to the South Rim of the Chisos Mountains and look out over the desert all the way to the river. The desert is powerful: the big space, the elevation gain and the deep canyons.

Capturing this on film takes patience. You might have to wait for a break in the clouds, for example, so you can give the sky some attention, give it room to work. Otherwise, it’s just broad, wide-angle vistas.

Plants provide another dimension. The prickly pear, ocotillo and big cane cactus make wonderful close-ups. They exemplify the sharpness and protectiveness of the desert.

Some desert plants bloom profusely and a fragile blossom against the harsh desert makes an arresting image. A blooming plant in the foreground accents the photograph; then you can let the landscape come in as a second reading.

In contrast, you have the Santa Elena and Boquillas canyons, where the Rio Grande has carved deep passages in the limestone. Reflections of canyon walls and fallen rocks in the river make intriguing photographs.

Bring a wide-angle to capture the spaces, a telephoto for cactus details and a polarizing filter.

The sculpting that nature did thousands of years ago in Big Bend hasn’t changed, and that’s part of its charm. But in Alaska’s Kenai Fjord National Park, nature is at work, changing everything, all the time.

Aialik Bay is an especially intense kind of evolutionary landscape, thanks, in part, to tremendous tidal fluctuations.

Calving - when pieces of the glacier break off and fall into the sea - creates spectacular sculptures.

The ice is moving constantly, changing and breaking. When it melts, the sculptures are laid out on the sand and cobble beaches and you can really explore texture and form. It’s frequently overcast here, but if there’s some light, the ice sculptures, backlighted by the sun, are impressive.

I love to shoot the dramatic contrast between the ice and the first signs of life - dwarf fireweed, willows, pines, spruce and even lichen.

Shooting in this landscape poses unique problems. With snow I overexpose somewhat so the final print or transparency won’t come out dark and gray.

With something very dark as the subject of the frame, I underexpose so it won’t come out gray. Mostly, though, I overexpose for the snow, letting some of the other areas go darker, colder and bolder in contrast to the light.

It’s really important to have a telephoto lens in Kenai for the wildlife - sea lions and even killer whales. A 70-200mm zoom lens is good, and a film speed of 100 to 400 ASA, especially if you’re going in by kayak and have to contend with rolling waves.

In sharp contrast to the barren nature of Kenai is Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee.

This is an ancient botanical island that hasn’t had any glacial activity. It’s all soft angles - real Appalachia - with mountains eroded down and rounded off over millions of years.

Sunrise over the Smokies is irresistible when the mist is up and the sun is just a ball over the ridges. It’s almost a cliche, but it’s my favorite sight there.

I also like Cades Cove with its historic farms and mills. You get a sense of the people who once lived here; how they lived and how they survived. But I also love to be deep in the lush forest, with its streams, ferns and ancient trees.

Life is all around the trees’ huge trunks. Delicate flowers such as ladyslippers and trillium provide striking contrast to the rugged trunks. Lie on your back and shoot upward. Follow the trunk all the way up to the leafy sky, watching for interesting lighting.

To get the feel of the fern forests, zero in on a moss spore or flower, letting the rest fall out of focus. With a telephoto or a macro you can isolate things. Keep looking for good angles to isolate against a dark background or a light one, depending on the mood you’re shooting for. Or try having foreground and background in focus so the photograph becomes abstract.

These are five fine parks, and it would be a huge mistake to assume that those parks I have omitted aren’t worth the film to shoot them.

Our treasure chest of national parks and monuments is bulging with more fantastic opportunities for quiet contemplation and nature-inspired humility - and great photo ops.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: IF YOU GO: Acadia National Park, P.O. Box 177, Bar Harbor, ME 04609; 207-288-3338 (voice/TDD). Big Bend National Park. P.O. Box 129, Big Bend National Park, TX 79834; 915-477-2251. Canyonlands National Park, 2282 S. West Resource Blvd., Moab, UT 84532; 801-259-7164. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 107 Park Headquarters Road, Gatlinburg, TN 37738; 423-436-1200. Kenai Fjords National Park, P.O. Box 1727, Seward, Alaska 99664-1727; 907-224-2132. Other parks that warrant mention include: Death Valley National Park: Shoot for space and texture, the graphic quality of the desert. Explore the patterns of the sand dunes, use a wide angle to play up the feeling of space. Death Valley National Park, P.O. Box 579, Death Valley, CA 92328; 619-786-2331. Glacier National Park: Glacier is alpine grandeur. Early mornings are lovely for reflections of snowcapped mountains in placid lakes. Glacier National Park, National Park Service, P.O. 128, West Glacier, MT 59936; 406-888-7800. Haleakala National Park: It’s a strange feeling, standing on top of a dormant volcano on a 30,000-foot mountain in the middle of the ocean. The landscape is brooding, dramatic and moody, rainbows one minute and rain the next. You must think and move fast. Haleakala National Park, P.O. Box 369, Makawao, HI 96768; 808-572-9306. Isle Royale National Park: This is a tranquil place, an intimate and introspective environment. Wander the trails in the forest and look for orchids, ladyslippers and other delicate surprises - and moose. Isle Royale National Park, 800 East Lakeshore Dr., Houghton, MI 49931; 906-482-0984.