Bentonite Hills, RT 2130 East Hartnet Rd

   This is the 4th Story Behind born from June 24, 2025, the previous three make up the July, August and September Story Behind Every Photograph posts. Following last month’s image and a return Fremont River crossing I simply turned back towards Hanksville for a turnoff only a mile or so away on the opposite side of the RT 24.

      I had seen an image on FaceBook by a photographer friend from California whom I’d never met in person. I reached out to Benedict Heekwan Yang and asked if he would share this particular location with me prior to leaving for the Bentonite Hills area later in 2025. Some photographers are very protective of a little known location, not sure why. Others, like myself and Benedict are comfortable with what their own interpretation of a location is all the matters, I’m thankful that Benedict shares that same approach about his imagery. My attraction to this particular image is the vantage point is from a higher elevation, I had no idea if a drone was used for this location. I have thought for sometime now, once I get a handle on the Sony digital camera and all the intricate post processing workflow my next venture into the unknown would be drone photography. Benedict indicated his image was taken from a high ridge line overlooking another section of the Bentonite Hills. He graciously provided me with detailed instructions and even a screenshot of a map of the turnoff from RT 24 in Caineville, UT. The directions were spot on turning right onto road marker 2130 East for about a mile. Traveling down the well maintained backcountry road I found a spot to park that would not obstruct traffic, if any were to come by. I told VicMom I would return within an hour, “no worries, I have plenty to read, go make your photograph”. Zoomed in towards the end of the video I already had a good idea where the final compositional relationships would lie.

    I made the steep climb up to the ridge line, and sure as Benedict had instructed me I came to just about the right spot. There was a good 50 yards or so to walk the ridge line looking for a composition that resonated with my aesthetic for an “overlook” image. As an FYI, the below video shows the exact naive color of the hills, no video enhancement took place. Higher vantage points always provide a means to create depth and dimension in 2 dimensional visual art, one of the driving forces for me to make an image. I quickly spotted the bright sandy wash weaving its way thru the hills. The twisting shape presented itself as the main focus of my image and I instinctively knew the image would be converted to B&W. The bright sandy wash would provide an entry point into the lower portion of the image and a subliminal yet powerful means to lead the viewer’s eye throughout the image. The sandy wash is clearly the focus of my image, the remaining part of the visual puzzle is where to begin and end my composition. That part of the visual puzzles is always most important to me. As I’ve said previously, the focus or center of interest of an image is the easiest part for me, while what to “include” and “exclude” become the difference makers in a dynamic visual statement…and a snapshot. I have included the color rendering below, again just as it came out of the Sony camera. Once home, that digital file would be post processed in Lightroom & Photoshop and then onto another powerful software plugin known as the TK 9 multimasking panel for further refinements. The traditional film photographer could choose from one of 3 colored filters such as Red, Green or Yellow to control tonal relationships throughout the image. The beauty of the TK panel, rather than a choice of only 3 filters, 3 complimentary colors of Cyan, Magenta and Blue are also an option and can have an important impact on the subtle mid-tones that so often are present in landscape photography.

      As a sidebar to my transition from strictly B&W film photography to the Sony digital camera and the “option” for a color image I have learned I do not care for deep Reds or Blues in an image, generally speaking. So standing there on the ridgeline I immediately knew the final image would be B&W. The warmth of a rising or setting sun and the impact it can have on the foreground area of an image is a feature I was not fully aware of until I began processing those types of images. Detailed in the text following the video below would be my last stop of the day at the Mars Research Station area.

    By now it is past 3 o’clock and the Mars Research Station area would be my last stop before a nice dinner @ Dukes, Vic Mom has certainly earned that ! The road to the Mars Research Station is an unmarked hairpin turn off of RT 24 back on the other-side of Moonscape Overlook turnoff. Why unmarked…the road sign is continually “stolen” due to its name…Cow Dung Rd ! In the next video is a 360 degree view of the Purple Mountain area a mile past the Mars Research Station. This day it was very windy as heard in the video. I’ll leave a naive Sony file seen just before the video which may possibly be written about in a future Story Behind Every Photograph.

Purple Mountain area

   At this point…I’ll thank everyone for following along with my Hanksville Utah adventure. Lots of photography has happened since Hanksville including 10 days in Yellowstone NP, 2 weeks in Ireland and numerous waterfall outings as the season turned to Autumn. Lots of Story Behinds are floating around in my head, not sure what December will bring at this point, but the Hanksville area has run its course for now. 

    Enjoy the upcoming Holiday Season One and All !