Pipe Spring is a National Monument just south of the border of Utah and Arizona. They received recognition as an International Dark Sky Park by the International Dark Sky Association in 2021. With this designation they wanted to celebrate and educate visitors about what it means to be a Dark Sky Park. The Visual Information division in Zion was asked to help create a few signs, artwork, and a wayside for the park. I was tasked with creating the wayside.

The people at Pipe Spring we worked with were clear with what they wanted for this, an image of a building in the park called Winsor Castle, with the milky way in the background, and a basket. We visited the National Monument to gather photos and talk with the people more about the entire program. I knew this would be a Photoshop intensive project, as I wouldn't be able to gather pictures from the site at night. I took multiple photos of the castle and baskets they had in their museum. I knew for the night sky I would have to use either one of the parks previous photos or a stock image. After scouring through our photos, I decided to use a stock image, as our photos weren't high enough quality and often contained famous Zion features in them. Once I had all the photos together and edited, I had a clear plan on what I wanted this Wayside to look like.

I began with taking the photos of the castle and making them appear they are in moonlight and not sunlight, and I was surprised at how well this turned out. Next, I began the slow process of removing the daytime sky from the image and replacing it with the night sky, which is normally an easy process, but I had to get very detailed around the tree branches and leaves. After the sky was in, I had an idea to make it look like the milky way was coming out of the basket, and I fortunately took a photo of a basket in the correct angle as this was not my original plan.

This was not the hardest display I have had to make, but I am very pleased with how well it turned out as I don't work with Photoshop as much as I do with Illustrator.