April 2, 2014
Rocks and Cloud in the Bisti Wilderness, New Mexico

I wasn't planning to make this image when I approached this general area of the Bisti Wilderness. I had been drawn to a small hoodoo and some rocks about 30 yds (about 30m) to the left of this composition, because the early light, about a quarter of an hour after sunrise, was casting interesting shadows. I tried a few compositions of the intended subjects, but they weren't that interesting because of intruding shadows from rocks out of the frame. To take advantage of the early light, I searched for nearby subjects and compositions and made some images that I liked. Then I circled back to the original subjects and tried photographing them again, and got an image that I liked. I kept working the area and revisited a composition that had worked pretty well with the TS-E 24mm f3.5 L II tilt/shift lens and worked it this time with the TS-E 45mm f2.8 tilt/shift lens to emphasize the background more. That's the image above, taken about 45 minutes after arriving in the general area, and it's the cloud that had moved into a perfect position that made this image really come together.