Late Summer at Enchanted Rock

I went out to Enchanted Rock last weekend hoping to get some inspiration for landscape photos. I have spent so much time editing photos from my trip in August that I haven’t really done much. I have also been patiently waiting for the September heat to let go, and in mid-October it is still here. Anyway, I knew I would have time Saturday afternoon so I reserved an entry for Enchanted rock and went for a hike. I didn’t climb the rock this time, but rather hiked around to the west side of the park as I thought I would get some nice shots with the sun at my back.

I guess the problem with photographing Enchanted Rock is showing its scale. It kind of just looks like a hillside in the photo. It is actually a rather enormous dome of granite. You can see a few trees clinging to crevasses in the photo above and what you can’t see are the dozens of people walking around on the top as they are scarcely more than 5 pixels tall.

I took a lot of photos in this location and spent a lot of time trying to find a foreground and trying not to photograph my own shadow, which is the downside of shooting with a low sun at your back. Not sure I found much inspiration here, so I turned to other subjects. The prickly pear were fruiting and I like their deep red color against the earth-toned landscape.

I eventually decided on a composition with gnarly old tree side-lit by the setting sun with red prickly pear fruit in the foreground and some large boulders in the distance. I did all of this hand-held as I didn’t pack a tripod because I didn’t want to carry the weight. But in this instance, it would have been nice to shoot this on a tripod as I could have focus stacked the cactus in the foreground with the tree in the background.

Gnarly old trees are always a nice subject, but I am not sure that was an inspired photo.

The sun was just about gone and I ran into some pink flowers near those large boulders that were catching the last light of the day. It was hard to pick them out of the weeds and get a good photo, but I got the camera down low and tried to keep the boulder in frame. The light from the setting sun is very yellow and really paints the scene with warm tones. I wish I had gotten to these flowers about 10 minutes earlier for a bit more light.

Just above the flowers, in front of the boulder is the hiking trail, so I climbed back up and headed for the truck after this. Not sure I found my inspiration on this afternoon, but it got me out of the house.

17 thoughts on “Late Summer at Enchanted Rock”

    1. I was a bit irritated by my boots on this hike too and that affected my mood. These are new boots and I have found that the right one doesn’t fit as I would like it. I experimented with an extra thick sock while out hiking yesterday and that worked a lot better. It is the same brand boot I had before, but the size seems to have changed a little since the previous order a couple of years ago. I wish shoe manufacturers wouldn’t mess around with stuff like this. It makes feel as though they are just some soulless corporation.

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  3. Enchanted Rock is one place we didn’t make it to yet on our trips down there. Love the prickly pear with the berries.

    Hope the hot days go away soon for you. Winter is coming here! Supposed to be down in the 30’s every night this week. BRR!

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