SOUTHERN UTAH PHOTOGRAPHY TOURS
The unique landscapes and formations of Southern Utah attracts photographers from around the world. Capitol Reef and the surrounding area is no exception.
If you have a strong interest in capturing picturesque settings, we can help. Our high clearance Jeeps will tackle tough trails and conditions to get us to the heart of these locations, and we provide invaluable insight on the unique lighting conditions and best times for these sites.
You can either let us know your interest in photography when booking one of our standard tours, or we can tailor a day specific to where and when you’d like to shoot.
Popular photography areas include...
- Cathedral Valley
- Temples of the Sun and Moon
- Cathedral Mountains
- Waterpocket Fold
- Slot canyons
- Strike Valley Overlook
- Bentonite Hills and other martian geology in area
- Factory Butte area
- Escalante slot canyons
- Astrophotography
What to know before you go
Capitol Reef and Grand Staircase-Escalante encompass a huge geographic area. Travel time from Torrey to these sites take over an hour, and are far enough apart you typically can’t shoot in multiple locations for each golden/blue hour.
Photographers frequently book our Jeep tours with the intention of arriving in a specific location for the golden/blue hour. You’ll still be able to take some amazing photos throughout the tour, but we do change the timing so your preferred location gets plenty of time for your preferred lighting.
For morning lighting, just to arrive at the beginning of sunrise at most of these sites you’ll usually need to leave at times from 4:30-5:30 am. If you want to arrive for blue hour or to scout out a location to set up tripods, you’ll need to leave even earlier.
CUSTOM TRIPS
Please contact us if you’d like to create a custom photography trip, or if you’d like more than the 6 hours of time than we provide on our regular Jeep tours
A custom overnight basecamp will allow you to access to a site in evening light, for astrophotography/Milky Way photos, and for morning light as well.
We can also create a custom itineraries to capture as many sites as possible with ideal lighting conditions. We could take you to sites for morning light before returning to Torrey to rest during midday, before heading back out to the next site for evening lighting. The slot canyons of Capitol Reef run east-to-west so we could even take advantage of midday light in this setting instead of returning to Torrey.