My favorite off the beaten path area of NW New Mexico. I try to make a trip here every spring. Always a new perspective, never another soul in sight. The difficulty: getting there requires a high-clearance 4WD vehicle and some sketchy route-finding. My 2013 Rogue bottomed out on the approach several years ago and I dislodged a plastic skid plate. Since then I've been renting more rugged vehicles for the trip.

On this occasion I decided to put away the wide angle zoom that I usually carry and rely exclusively on a 50mm fixed focal length lens. Doing so, I found that composing my images became more straightforward. But the process also required shifting my physical location - as in moving back and forth - to fill the frame with what I wanted. An old school technique that paid off in ways I didn't anticipate. The 1.4 Canon EF lens produced sharp, crisp images when I did my job with the mechanics of the process.

I visited two parts of this badlands complex on this trip - this gallery covers the first section, and I will post the second part after those images are processed.