Glen Canyon Dam Overlook

Author's Comments

The dam is a strange subject. It is brutal and beautiful at the same time, and I have not entirely worked out which side wins. What I know is that the morning is when the photograph is there. The dam face is oriented in such a way that the sun, climbing over the eastern rim, washes the concrete in warm light while the canyon downstream is still holding shadow. That contrast is the picture. Without it the dam reads flat, just a pale wall against pale rock, and you wonder why you stopped. I tend to shoot wide first, taking in the bridge and the river and the curve of the structure together, and then I work in tighter. The detail shots are what surprise me. The seams in the concrete, the small figures of workers or visitors on the crest if you are lucky, the way the Colorado emerges below in a green that does not match anything else in the landscape. Late winter mornings are particularly good because the air is clear and the low angle of the sun rakes across the dam face and pulls texture out of what looks, at midday, like a smooth surface. This is not a place I would drive hours for. But if you are passing through Page on your way to somewhere else, and you are there at the right hour, it is worth the ten minutes. Stand at the rail. Let the scale settle on you. Then make the photograph.

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