I moved from Oregon to Texas this past year, which meant trading waterfalls and the Pacific coastline for desert, canyon, and sky. My first real photography trip here took me to Big Bend National Park for hiking, paddle boarding, and shooting images with a brand-new camera system I’m still getting to know. I came home with images I’m proud of and some of my favorite edits I’ve done in ON1 Photo RAW in a long time. Below is a look at each location, the shots, and the editing decisions behind them.

Even though I now live in the piney woods of East Texas, I decided my first real photography trip here needed to be to West Texas and Big Bend National Park. While it wasn’t strictly a photography trip, I wanted to spend just as much time hiking and paddle boarding, yet still came home with a collection of images I wanted to share with you.

Santa Elena Canyon: iPhone Portrait Mode + ON1 Color Editor

If you’ve never hiked Santa Elena Canyon, put it on your list. The Rio Grande cuts through canyon walls that rise nearly 1,500 feet above the river. You can hike a short distance in on foot or paddle much farther upstream.

The first image from this location was shot on my iPhone 17 Pro Max. I find myself reaching for my phone more often now, and this was a good example of why. I used Portrait mode to keep a prickly pear cactus sharp in the foreground while softly blurring the Rio Grande behind it.

The Edit

The edit in ON1 Photo RAW was minimal. I made modest tone and color adjustments in Develop, then added two Color Editor filters in Effects: one to enhance the green tones in the cactus, and another to deepen the blue in the sky. That was the whole edit.

A few additional frames from the canyon are included below. They may be more fun than photographically significant, but they capture what it feels like to be there.

Tuff Canyon: Super Select AI + Dynamic Contrast

On the drive back from Santa Elena, I stopped near Tuff Canyon along the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive. Bright white rock formations rise out of deep red earth against a Texas blue sky. The contrast between red, white, and blue made this the strongest photograph of the trip.

This was shot on my Fujifilm X-E5 with a polarizer. After shooting Canon for nearly forty years, I made the jump to Fuji for this trip. We’re still getting acquainted, but I’m enjoying the process.

The Edit

I started with lens corrections and basic tone and color adjustments in Develop. From there, I used a local adjustment with Super Select AI to brighten and whiten the foreground rocks. I then applied Dynamic Contrast, also selectively with Super Select AI, to pull out detail in the distant mountain range. A subtle vignette finished it off.

I keep going back and forth between the color and black-and-white versions. What do you think?

Sotol Vista: Black-and-White Conversion + Curves for Depth

Late that afternoon I went scouting for a sunset location and was pointed toward Sotol Vista. When I arrived, clouds were casting dramatic shadows across the desert. I used a longer lens to isolate a nearby butte, and I knew before I even started editing that this one wanted to be black and white.

The Edit

After basic tonal adjustments in Develop, I added the Black & White filter in Effects and pulled down the blue and cyan sliders to darken the sky. I applied Dynamic Contrast to add texture, then finished with a Curves filter to build local contrast in the rocks.

Black-and-white tip worth keeping:

Curves are one of the most effective tools for creating depth and texture in a monochrome image. Use the dropper to sample a light and a dark area in the scene, then gently raise the highlights and deepen the shadows. The result is a print-like quality that flat conversions don’t achieve.

I also included an iPhone panorama from the same overlook. The sunset never fully ignited that evening, but watching the light move across the desert was worth every minute of standing there.

Final Thoughts

A few days in Big Bend isn’t enough time to understand a place like this. Landscapes reveal themselves slowly — across seasons, weather, and light. I already know I’ll be back.

What struck me most wasn’t the scale of the landscape. It was the silence, the openness, and the awareness that wilderness like this still exists.

There are more than 60 national parks across 30 states. Every one of them is an opportunity to step away from the noise, reconnect with what drew you to photography in the first place, and come home with images that mean something.

Get outside this summer. Explore somewhere new. Make photographs that remind you why you started.

*All edits in this post were made in ON1 Photo RAW. If you want to go deeper on any of the tools mentioned, the ON1 Video Library has tutorials on Color Editor, Super Select AI, Dynamic Contrast, and more. Or try ON1 Photo RAW free for 30 days and follow along yourself.*