February 26, 2014
Sunrise in White Pocket, Sandstone Cones at First Light and Juniper at Dawn in the Coyote Buttes Wilderness, all in the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, Arizona

One of the benefits of being familiar with an area is knowing where to go for the conditions. There were some decent clouds near the eastern horizon at White Pocket five days ago for sunrise, and I knew where to find a good foreground and middle-ground to take advantage of those clouds. I also knew from recent experience that the color would likely be restricted to a small region above the horizon, so I used my 24mm Tilt/Shift lens instead of the 17mm Tilt/Shift to incorporate a smaller part of the sky. The clouds lit up and the color didn't extend much beyond the top of my frame — whew!

Three mornings ago in the Coyote Buttes South, there were some nice clouds shortly after sunrise and I circled an area that's great at that time of the day while chasing the clouds. My favorite image is this one taken as the foreground just started to get first light.

I discovered this area in Coyote Buttes South six days ago in the afternoon. The clouds weren't very good at the time, but I thought the area would also be good at dawn even on a clear day. We had those conditions two days ago, and this composition worked even better as the sandstone buttes started to get light on them. I used the shift motion of the 45mm Tilt/Shift lens to look up without tilting the camera body much to maintain a natural look without creating keystoning.