THE PHOTO KINDA says it all, right? A stunning vista, a cooling rain shower, that otherworldly feeling of looking over a precipice and seeing only clouds below. Essentially, it was exactly what North Little Rock-based photographer Beth Buckley was hoping for when she and a friend set out on a hike to the famous Yellow Rock in Devil’s Den State Park.
“I hadn’t been to Yellow Rock probably since I was a kid,” Beth says. “Over the past few years, things like Yellow Rock and Hawksbill Crag have really blown up with popularity, and it kind of defeats the purpose for me of getting out in nature and hiking if there’s, like, a million other people around.”
Luckily for Beth, the punishing heat of that Arkansas late-summer day in August had given way to a cool rain shower, but the precipitation was also enough to keep others away long enough for Beth and her hiking partner to have the area all to themselves. (Well, aside from a brief run-in with a pair of trail-running evangelists, but that’s another story.)
“I’m always looking for interesting weather and moody lighting, and sometimes getting out in the worst conditions can yield the most interesting images,” she says. “I’m assuming probably some people who might have hiked that trail at that point thought there wasn’t much of a view, but I was happy with the way it turned out.”