Josh Krasner and head to Zion National Park for a few days of hiking and fall photography in one of the nation's most spectacular national parks. While we were blessed with wonderful hiking weather, it was generally not so awesome for photography, with the dreaded clear blue skies predicted for several days in a row.
Including multiple attempts during this trip I've tried to shoot this scene probably 7 or 8 times with no success in the past i. Finally, on our second to last night in the park some clouds started to gather in the late afternoon, so we changed our plans and decided we'd give the Watchman shot one more try.
As the sun started to go down and more color filled the sky, the old Battle Hymn of the Republic tune filled my head. I don't think there could be a more fitting song to go with this scene. But there's a [short] backstory to why this particular song stuck in my head on this lovely evening. My trip started out with a flight in to Seattle and a drive up to the interior of British Columbia to visit my mother, who lives at the southern end of the beautiful Okanagan Valley.
I won't go long in to the history but it is based on an old folk tune called "John Browns Body" from the late s the tune itself may go back even further - en. I certainly remember versions of this song with alternative lyrics celebrating the destruction of the school and various permutations of revenge inflicted upon the teachers from my time as an elementary student. Apparently this was not limited to my school and seems to have been a pretty ubiquitous school yard chant playgroundjungle.
I've never heard my kids sing it though, so likely it has been replaced by "Baby Shark" or some other new internet fad. In truth it was a pretty awful thing to sing about teachers so that might not be such a bad thing. So, several days later as the evening sky blazed to life over the visual perfection that is the winding Virgin River valley in Zion NP, I felt positively triumphant as I stood on that bridge along with 30 or so other photographers , and the words "Glory, glory, hallelujah!
