I’ve been sitting on a Southwest road trip plan for about three months now. Denver to Moab is a four-hour drive, which means I keep adding it to the “do it this weekend” pile and then not doing it. Part of what kept stalling me was the research problem: Arches National Park has a lot of ground to cover, and the last thing I want is to burn half a day driving between viewpoints and come home with nothing worth keeping. I needed someone to just tell me where to stand.

In this The Slanted Lens tutorial, photographer Jay P. Morgan does exactly that. He lays out a tight, efficient route for getting strong arch images in roughly an hour, focused on a specific cluster of formations that deliver the most visual payoff for the time invested. It’s location scouting content done practically, not as a scenic travelogue.

Why Most Arch Shots Fail Before You Even Pick Up the Camera

The problem with shooting in Arches is that the park is named after its arches, but most of them require serious hiking or awkward midday positioning to reach. A lot of photographers end up at the famous Delicate Arch after a grueling trail, shoot it in harsh afternoon light, and wonder why the image looks flat. The issue isn’t the arch. It’s the planning.

Morgan’s point, which I think gets undersold in his video title, is that proximity and framing flexibility matter more than chasing the marquee landmark. He focuses on the Windows Section of the park, specifically North Window, South Window, and Turret Arch. These three formations sit close together, which means you can work the light across all of them without burning time on travel between stops.

The Windows Section: Specific Positions That Actually Work

Morgan walks through the positioning with real clarity. For North and South Window together, the key is to find the angle where you can frame both arches in a single composition. That requires stepping back far enough to see the full span of both openings but not so far that you lose the rock texture that makes the image interesting. He shoots from the basin below, using the curve of the terrain as a natural foreground.

For Turret Arch, the move is to shoot through North Window toward Turret Arch on the right. This gives you a frame-within-a-frame composition, which is one of those techniques that sounds obvious but requires precise positioning to execute cleanly. You need to be far enough left inside the North Window alcove that Turret Arch appears through the opening without clipping the rock edge. Morgan demonstrates the lateral adjustments you need to make, and it’s the kind of thing that’s genuinely hard to describe in text but easy to follow once you see it.

The other thing he notes is that this area works in multiple lighting conditions. You’re not locked into golden hour only. The rock walls bounce and soften direct sun, which means you can get workable images in conditions that would kill a shot at a more exposed location.

The Gear He’s Using and What That Tells You

Morgan mentions he’s shooting with Tamron glass throughout, specifically the 18-300mm for APS-C and the 16-300mm G2. Both are zoom lenses that cover a wide range without requiring a lens swap in the field. For location work where you’re moving fast and framing changes constantly, that’s a practical choice, not a lazy one.

I run a similar philosophy on gear for travel work. A sharp all-in-one zoom that stays on the camera beats a bag full of primes you have to stop and swap. The Tamron 18-300mm in particular is one I’ve tested against several competing lenses in the same price range, and the results are closer than most people expect. It’s not a lens you buy for bragging rights. You buy it because it works and it’s one less thing to think about when you’re trying to nail a composition before the light shifts.

He also uses an SKB hard case with backpack straps for transport, which is the kind of gear choice that signals someone who actually travels with equipment rather than just reviews it on a desk.

The One Thing I’d Add to This Approach

Morgan’s route is tight and effective for the Windows Section, and I’d follow it closely. The one thing I’d layer on top of it is a hyperfocal distance calculation done ahead of time for whatever lens you’re carrying.

Frame-within-a-frame compositions like the North Window to Turret Arch shot require deep depth of field to keep both the near rock frame and the distant arch sharp simultaneously. If you arrive without a rough idea of your focus distance and aperture combination, you’ll spend time chimping and adjusting when you should be moving laterally to find the cleanest framing. I use a simple hyperfocal chart saved on my phone. Takes thirty seconds to check before I leave the car, saves several minutes of frustration on location.

That’s not a critique of the tutorial. Morgan is showing you where to go and what to look for. The technical prep before you arrive is your job.

The Single Lesson This Video Locks In

If you’re working with limited time at Arches National Park, the Windows Section gives you multiple strong compositions within walking distance of each other, and the frame-within-a-frame shot from North Window toward Turret Arch is the one image worth building your visit around. Everything else is bonus.

Watch the full tutorial from The Slanted Lens to see the actual framing and positioning demonstrated on location: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqqG_eVV288. The visual walkthrough is what makes the positioning advice click in a way that text alone can’t replicate.