White Pocket is a Photographer's Paradise!
White Pocket is a unique landscape found southeast of Kanab, Utah, but on the Arizona side of the border. Both North Coyote buttes that has the famous Wave and South Coyote buttes are in the area, too.
Get directions to White Pocket from the BLM office in Kanab, UT where the drawing for the Wave is held each morning. I have driven my 4WD Sierra Pickup in there several times with no trouble, but the sandy lanes to White Pocket are challenging. Any mistake and you are stuck, and help is a long ways off and expensive.
When I go to White Pocket, I always plan to stay for at least two nights, and more often three nights as the road in is rugged and treacherous. Notice the inflatable mattress in the bed of my pickup where I sleep at night. For power, I use a portable gas-powered generator to recharge my camera and flash batteries, computer battery, and heat my always needed coffee.
These colorful swirls and shapes in the rocks are rewarding and force you to really look for the strongest compositions. My wide-angle lens is close to the foreground, so I stacked several images to cover the depth of field using f/8 - a sharp aperture in my lens.
The main gear I use at White Pocket is the following:
1. Canon 5D Mark IV
2. Canon 16-35mm and 24-70mm lenses.
3. Polarizers for every lens I have
4. Canon 600EX-RT speedlite
5. Canon Flash Controller ST-E3-RT
6. Flashlight for light painting and finding my way back to my truck at night.
Another focus stack to cover the depth of field at White Pocket.
I often use flash to light objects when the ambient light is dim at dawn or dusk. Here I used my Canon 600EX-RT to add light to the grass in this rock bowl. I used a 1/2 CTO gel on the flash to warm up the color of the grass.
Notice the pattern and texture in the "brain rock" behind the flash-lit grass in the bowl.
And a self-portrait of me! I was using the Canon flash to light the tree from the side and behind it. I forgot I might be in the image at times. The Canon 600EX-RT, when used with the radio controller (ST-E3-RT), fires the camera from quite a distance.
