It was 2020, June 20 of 2020 to be exact.  the summer equinox, the longest day of the year. It was also the time of covid.  

The year had started like any other.  There was snow on the ground. I had skied 15 days so far that year.  There was a cool photo conference in Southern Utah I wanted to attend called “Outsiders.”  I reserved my spot in the town of Kanab (a great location if you want to be central to all the cool stuff in the world to photograph— Zion, Bryce, North Rim, Lake Powell, Page, Toadstools and so on) so that I could attend the conference, and then Carol and I would go exploring. 

While we were down there a few days before the conference start, we got word that Park City Mountain Resort had shut down because of Covid.  Wow.  (It did not help that at the time, the book we were listening to was Station 11, a book about a global pandemic.)  Soon the little town of Kanab was inundated with people from nearby St. George looking for toilet paper.  Really, toilet paper.  We were pretty self sufficient in our trailer.  The conference was canceled.  We were still able to explore at bit locally and we looked at each other trying to decide if we should go home, or just hang out in the trailer.  We opted for home.  We spent the next few months doing some local excursions, sticking close to home.  I had retired from MerlinOne (now Canto) in April.  

So we drove to the elbow of Wyoming and Utah, the corner of the notch that cuts into the northeaster portion of Utah.  We spent a few nights in the trailer in Flaming Gorge.  I did a project of backyard wildflowers.  

We decided one of our local adventures would be to see the Sun Tunnels, a piece of land art created by Nancy Holt.  The four concrete culverts were carefully placed to frame the sun as it rises and sets during the summer and winter solstices. Small holes have been drilled in the tops of the culverts to cast projections of constellations in the interior of the culverts during the day.   Since the tunnels were specifically designed for certain dates of the year, we went on June 20.   We arrived around 1pm or so.  There were a few others there but not many.  We spent the afternoon walking through the cement culverts watching skate boarders in the culverts and as the sun started to get lower in the sky, I got out my chair and positioned it right where I wanted it for a photo.  As the evening progressed more people showed up.  For a while I was able to keep the path clear, nothing between me and the culverts that aligned with the setting sun.  People were polite and acknowledged my tripod and camera presence.  That lasted for a bit, but eventually, there were so many other people looking for something, anything to do during Covid,  my envisioned photo was smothered by people (so much for social distancing).  

So, what to do?  Make the most of it.  Lose the tripod, get mobile and look around. Pay attention to the surroundings and see what else is happening. (Sound familiar?)  There are so many times when you have to make adjustments in life, and it is no different in photography.  I adjusted, made some nice photos and kept my own mask on.

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