Big Ear is one of the many arches found in Monument Valley, most of them well off the usual tourist trail. The stark dead tree in the foreground, breaking all horizons, gives a nice foreground, providing sharp edges against the sky and the background rocks. Notice how the underside of the arch is nicely lit with bounced light. 

This is one example of using a Cokin Blue/Yellow polarizing filter, to enhance the glow of the rock, while not “overdoing” the saturation of the sky. 

This was an expensive photograph. When this image was made, a mini-sandstorm was blowing, and in our enthusiasm, we neglected to simply wait for clear air. It was necessary to later have the zoom lens cleaned professionally, to remove the resulting grit from its innards.

One of the best locations for photographing flowering prickly pear in spring seems to be outside the entrance gate to Canyonlands National Park, where acres of blooms will be found, both magenta and yellow. The blossoms only open when the day is warm, and so make a find mid-day photo op, after you’ve finished doing your laundry, and  have swum yourself silly. 

It’s always worthwhile including a macro lens with your inventory, if travelling in spring.  Popular technique advocates that you shade the flowers, so that there are no harsh shadows in your picture - but this will cause a color shift on the film, in this case, and your magenta blossoms will become rather pink, on the resulting image. For true color, live with the shadows, and don’t shade the flowers - or be prepared to work with correction filters.

Most views of Canyonlands National Park are made from higher elevations, looking down into the bottom lands. The horizon is usually a long way off, and your view goes on for many miles.
       ...and it’s all background! Making a good photographic composition is difficult, as you  need some kind of foreground. Without a foreground, all that view is going to be very tiny in the frame, without impact.  Luckily, you can often find twisted junipers or piñon pines, that you can use as a frame for your composition.

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Its fun photographing the various Park entrance signs, and very useful if you need title slides for a travel show, later. Your title shots will have far more impact, however, if you include some happy tourist, looking like he or she is glad to be there.