Pinnacles Overlook

Pinnacles Overlook is located just inside the park entrance due south of Wall, South Dakota.

I arrived a day early for a Tony Sweet workshop in Badlands National Park. It had been a long day of travel and I really just wanted to relax but thought at the last minute "I really ought to at least go to the nearest overlook to see what sunset will look like." I arrived at Pinnacles Overlook just before sunset and as luck would have it I was greeted with wonderful clouds, a storm brewing and very high winds, so high I needed to hold down my tripod. I composed several different ways, always taking three exposures (+2, 0, and -2) because of the very high contrast in the scene (the bright sun and sky and the darkish shadows in the canyons). I felt this image was the best of the group. I used Nik HDR Efex Pro 2 to tone map the three exposures and then applied a curves adjustment in Photoshop to Nik's default blended image.