By Joe Berk
When good buddy Baja John and yours truly ran the mother of all publicity stunts (the CSC Motorcycles Western America Adventure Ride) through the western United States, I had the easy part. I simply rode at the head of the formation of our dozen or so Chinese, Colombian, and US riders. Baja John did all the heavy lifting: Selecting our routes, mapping out the course, and handling all the hotel reservations. John did a hell of a job, finding roads that were scenic, twisty, and representative of the best riding America has to offer. Of all the roads we rode, one in particular stands out: Utah’s Highway 12.
Utah Highway 12 runs from just east of Bryce Canyon National Park to Capitol Reef National Park, and it something out of a psychedelic mapmaker’s mind with the vibrance turned up. Way up. The road winds its way through by bright pink and white sandstone cliffs, with its black tarmac and yellow lines piercing a path through a dramatic landscape. It is fine motorcycling; the stuff of dreams and brilliant memories. If you’ve never ridden Utah, trust me on this: You need to.
I enjoyed that stretch of Utah so much that a year or two later Susie and I repeated the trip, and it was along Utah Highway 12 that I stopped and grabbed the photo you see above. Sometimes these photos are a little tricky to capture while standing in the road, focusing on composition, angling the polarizer for the best saturation and reflection elimination, holding the camera steady, and grabbing the best possible photograph, all the while listening intently for any traffic barreling up the road behind me. The trick is to not get run over while seeking the perfect picture. So far, I’ve been lucky.
I used my Old Faithful combo (my Nikon D810 camera and 24-120 lens) for the above photo. I used to think prime lenses (i.e., lenses of the non-zoom variety) provided the sharpest images, but the Nikon 24-120 lens changed my mind. It’s as sharp a lens as any of the several I’ve used. I did not use a tripod. The Nikon 24-120 has a built-in vibration reduction feature, so on a bright and sunny day there’s really no need for a tripod. Hand-held is good enough.
There’s a bit more to the story, and that’s another story. I pitched this stretch of road as a “Destinations” piece for Motorcycle Classics magazine, and they bought it. You can read that article here, and you can read a few of my other destinations pieces here. If you are not a Motorcycle Classics subscriber, you should be. It’s one of the few remaining motorcycle print publications, and it has always been one of the best. And if you want to read more about our trek across the western US, get yourself a copy of 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM.
Earlier Phavorite Photos? You bet! Click on each to get their story.
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