I visited Page, Arizona recently and as you can expect I did a lot of photography. There were masses of people. I counted well over 300 cars at Horseshoe Bend. Trying to photograph when there are well more than 300 people in your way can be a challenge. People just don't care about us photographers. They will stand right in front of your camera as if you do not exist. How do you get a decent shot when dealing with a situation like this?

          First order of business is to walk to the edge of the crowd where there are fewer people. It does not help to walk too far away because then you also walk away from the scene that you want to photography, the very scene that the crowds have come to see. Next, I look around in search of a way to get a clear shot without people in my image. I look for height, a little mound, anything that will enable me to shoot over the people. When that does not work I look to go where others are not willing to go or where just one person fits in. I found this spot and jumped down a little cliff where I knew no one could join me.

          I set up my tripod and gear. Hoards of people were constantly walking by behind me. A keen person stopped to look at what I was shooting. He waited and waited for me to take the shot, but I just stood there. About 8 or so minutes went by until he eventually asked, "is there a right time to take the shot?" He could not understand why I was waiting. The light was nice, the scene was great, what was I waiting for? I explained that I was waiting for the sun to touch to the horizon so that it will make a sun star (just use a small F.Stop).

          That moment eventually came but now there were what seemed like millions of bugs flying around. With the sun right behind the bugs, they lit up and were going to ruin my shot. To make matters worse I was struggling to get rid of flare. A lady took a position in, just a few feet from me. She was just sitting there and watching the sunset. She must have sensed my frustration. Perhaps I was mumbling to myself about all the challenges. She looked at me and asked, "it is a beautiful scene, what is the matter?" I was frantically at work trying to putt it all together for I had but a few moments before the sun would disappear. I told her briefly about the annoying bugs and the flare. She smiled, took a deep breath and with a lot of satisfaction said, "some scenes are just not meant to be photographed, they are just meant to be enjoyed." That is not what a photographer wants to hear, at least not this one. Here is what I putt together:

As you can see, I am taking this image from a place where no one will join me. The sun is rather bright, so I bracketed to blend images in post-processing. I had to spend a lot of time getting rid of bugs in post-processing too. In the end, I feel that it was worth the work; I like the image a lot.

          So what makes this image a nice image? How do you put together a complete image that seems to have it all?

• Try to get away from crowds of people. Including a person or two in your image may be a good thing. Having loads of people in a landscape image just does not go over to well; unless the people are part of your story.

• This image has a strong foreground that helps to give depth.

• The V-shape of the foreground is exactly what the river and the scene needs; they complement each other.

• The river forms an S-shape which is always very dynamic in photographs. The viewer's eyes will follow it through the image.

• The sun star is placed in a good place in the frame compositionally and is aided the space the bend in the river makes there.

• There are a few clouds in the sky so that it is not a boring sky.

• The image has some drama with the high cliffs.

There is a lot of thinking that goes into putting an image together. It took me over an hour of walking around to find this spot. I had to find a spot that would not only shield me from having people in the image but that would also work well compositionally. I waited for the sun to be at the right spot to create the sun star. Lastly, it took a lot of photoshop work to exterminate the bugs and to get rid of the flare.

          Sometimes it just takes a lot of hard work to putt it all together. Was it worth it? I think so, what do you think?