Customer Reviews

Arches and Canyonlands - Seasons of The National Parks

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

ARCHES AND CANYONLANDS by Tom Till is a 59 minute movie showing images from Arches National Park and nearby Canyonlands National Park. It is reasonable to include both of these parks on one DVD, since they are located right across the street from each other, that is, Route 191 which runs through Moab, Utah. I also thought I saw a couple of images from nearby Fisher Towers, located just south of Arches National Park.

Mr.Till operates an elegant art gallery on Route 191, in the middle of the business district on Moab, bustling with gift shops, mineral shops, inviting restaurants, and clean motels. The other year, I spent a week exploring Arches Nat'l. Park and Canyonlands Nat'l. Park. Most of the images shown on this disc were familiar to me, either from personal observation, or from my little collection of Utah photography books.

On the plus side, only one or two of the images include a hiker or traveler. Also on the plus side, only two or three of the images were "anonymous" photographs of flowers or of meadows of flowers. In other words, the DVD showed dramatic stone formations, one after the other after the other, and refrained from showing tourists, commercial enterprises, or wildflowers. Also on the plus side, is that Mr.Till is a decent photographer. He takes care to shoot at dawn or at dusk, and to refrain from shooting in the vicinity of the noon hour. Most landscape photographers know that highest quality images can be found at dawn or dusk. (Actually, I prefer photographs taken during an overcast day.) Where Mr.Till's photographs were taken near mid-day, Mr.Till was careful to shoot only when the sky included a pattern of clouds resembling sheep's wool.

But on the minus side, all of the images were somewhat blurry, just as a videotape movie would be blurry. Also on the minus side, all of the images were movies of photographs (not actual movies of the scenery). It is possible that the blurriness arose from the fact that a photographic print was used as an intermediate medium, for the preparation of this DVD. I am not sure why I would want to buy a DVD that just shows still photographs, when I can buy a photograph book where the photgraphs are sharp, distinct, and not blurry. Also on the minus side, is that the movie fails to identify the location of any of the images. The DVD does include, in small letters towards the side, "Spring," "Summer," "Fall," and "Winter," in small letters at the beginning of each section. Would it have been too much trouble for the video engineer to add the names of a few of the locations? Also on the minus side, is that the music is cheesy EZ-listening music. More appropriate, at least in my opinion, would be Native American music from Utah. Utah is the home to five Native American tribes: 1) Ute Tribe 2) Paiute Tribe 3) Goshute Tribe 4) Dine' Navajo Tribe 5) Shoshoni Tribe. I would have been impressed if this DVD provided a selection of music from one or more of these tribes. I was NOT impressed by the sanitized cheesy music.

To conclude, the natural landscape in Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park is arguably the best and most dramatic on this planet. Another DVD on Utah landscape is available, namely, National Parks: Southwest, a 4-DVD set of films previously seen on PBS. But this set of four DVDs from PBS is a true horror (I found it unbearable, so I discarded all four discs). At any rate, Mr.Till's DVD is a distinct improvement over the horrible PBS discs, but it is blurry, and it does not quite do justice to Utah's national parks. In my opinion, Utah's natural landscape is still not adequately served by a decent DVD. In my opinion, it is misleading to market a DVD where the DVD only shows still images. This is misleading because the letter "V" in DVD means "video." The product under review is NOT a video. It is just a photography book that you can watch on your television, that's all.