Frog and Whale Frog and Whale
Explanation For part two of my trip to Palo Duro Canyon, I'd like to treat you to a couple of pictures I took while hiking the Rock Garden trail. While I spent less time hiking on this second day, it was a way harder hike. For one, I was already tired from the previous day of hiking. Also, the Rock Garden trail is mostly uphill going up with an elevation difference around 600 feet spread across two and a half miles one way.

Now, you might ask, what's up with the whale? Didn't you already have the frog the previous day? The answer to that is a bit simpler than you might expect. As I mentioned earlier, one of my close friends recently had a baby, so I've been getting a stuffed animal from where I've been traveling. So, why a whale? Well, what better to represent an arid landscape than a whale, right? I personally find the irony quite funny. Usually, I try to get these souvenirs from the parks I go to. But this time around I ended up spending some time at some antique/thrift stores in Amarillo off 6th street and found this fella in a box for $2, so why not?

Anyways, getting to these pictures. I found this particular roll quite odd. Both of these pictures were taken with Lomography LomoChrome Metropolis film and it's a really weird film. It has a really strong desaturation effect which I'm not sure how I want to use. Additionally, it was super bright this day so I was taking pictures stopped really far down, the effect of which creates sharp images throughout the frame. (I do recognize that if you stop too far down it can get fuzzy again but that's not too important here) Unlike the previous roll of Portra 160 where I was using the Minolta 28mm, here I was using the Vivitar 28mm. One effect of that is that the narrowest aperture for the Vivitar is f16 instead of f22. That said, I will say that posing two objects also creates a lot more variability in what and how I can express subjects in the frame.

For the first picture, I would say that it's got a real retro vacation vibe. I don't really appreciate how washed out the background is, all the oranges and pinks are largely wiped out from a combination of the film and the sunlight. However, I do like how frog and whale are posed here, facing different directions but in a kind of intimate way. Having them off center gives it that expansive view that you might commonly find with certain types of travel pictures, especially those that are overlooking a bluff or canyon like what's pictured here. Unfortunately, a whale doesn't have bending legs so it can't sit over the edge like you might expect a person to or that'd be a pretty easy image to imagine.

The second picture is a bit more interesting. I'm not actually all that happy about how it turned out but I still like it overall. The left edge is a bit odd, somehow the previous image overlapped with this picture. I imagine what happened is that the lever didn't fully engage when I was advancing which led to it getting caught on the beginning of this one. Normally, my camera doesn't allow you to take a picture in this case, but it did. I'm curious to see if that's something I can make use of in the future, but it's mostly just an oddity for this picture. If you read my post on Wildcat Bluff and the "bad" picture I took there, you'll also notice the odd discoloration in the same vertical band as I described there. Again, this appears in a few pictures I took so I'll have to keep an eye on that in the future.

The thing that interests me most about this picture is the shadows. I wish I had noticed how sharp these shadows were and how much they'd obscure the left side of the whale. While I like the overall effect here, I would likely do a couple things differently. I'd probably orient the whale sideways with the the side facing right, as in the first picture. I'd also probably move the whale a bit further back so it'd be more in the sun. This is mostly to catch the whale's eye color a bit more as neither eye is lit enough to really be seen and are effectively just bulges to the side. I'd also probably place the frog on the right side ledge so it could cast its shadow down into that crevice where they're both sitting in now. I probably should have just spent more time adjusting them into different positions to see what I liked more. That said, the reason why I didn't was because it was really windy that day. This picture was also taken in an outcropping at the top of the canyon where the wind was the strongest. Placing the two of them there was also a way to protect them from getting blown away while taking the picture.

On a note unrelated to the pictures, I will no longer carry any sort of sweet electrolyte drinks while hiking. During this hike I had brought some Powerade with me and while it did a generally good job of quenching my thirst, it also coated my teeth and tongue in an entirely unpleasant stickiness. Honestly, that stickiness was more gross than the positive effects as opposed to water.