Monument Valley: Travel and Phototips

First of all, this is not a national park, so your inter-agency seasonal park pass from NPS will not work here. Despite that the fees are very reasonable (especially for one whose travel budget is really tight). I paid 5 dollars per head and 10 dollars for camping. Since you are in the middle of the desert do not expect a high-end camping accomdations. This place is primitive and that is exactly where we stayed at their Primitive Campsite. Here are some travel tips if you decide to camp here:

1. There are basic porta-poties, but make sure that you bring your own toilet paper. It has a tendancy to run out fast.
2. Pay for camp first before going to the campsite.
3. Campsites are first come first serve and you can camp anywhere. Once you have paid set-up your tent to book your spot, then go for a drive or a jeep tour.
4. There is a small grocery near by where you could purchase firewood, charcoal and food.
5. There are no tall trees here, so it really does not matter where you set-up your tent.
6. It gets noisy at night. Yeah no one comes around and shuts people up at night. I wish they did.
7. Find a spot and book it with your tent, it gets really crowded by evening.

Here are some of my photography tips that I used to capture the pictures on Khakis, CamelBak and a Camera:

1. Invest in a tripod. You will be taking some amazing pictures in low light.
2. Set your camera to the aperture priority mode (Av for cannon and A for Nikon). Since I wanted to capture as much of the landscape as possible I set mine to about 11.
3. Cable release for night shots to prevent vibrations.
4. Take as much pictures as possible. The colors here change in an instant.
5. To turn some of my pictures like a Marsian landscape I used a Cokin soft gradient orange and 4-stop neutral density filters.
6. To capture the sunrise. I removed all my filters to prevent shadowing.

I hope that these tips will help you when you visit this place.