Mono mesa arch

Last year my friend and I decided to go to Moab (Or at least I did) to visit Canyonlands and arches national parks. I totally forgot that it was memorial day weekend, so when we arrived, the town was like a zoo. Luckily, we were able to grab the last campsite at the willow flat campground in Canyonlands. Only two hours in and my tent was destroyed by the extremely heavy winds and blowing sand. With a week ahead of us we were forced to sleep in the car (two 6'+ men). Surprisingly I found the back of my car to be quite roomy. I didn't feel like heading into town to buy a new tent, as I set aside a budget for this trip. So with the crazy winds never really letting up, I really only got two images I was somewhat happy with. One of delicate arch after waiting for three hours between storms and waiting for tourists to move from under the arch, and the other, a panoramic image of mesa arch. With the overcast skies and windy conditions, I wasn't quite sure if there would be a special light display under the arch. We stuck around anyways and I shot this 13 image stitch of the arch while the sun went behind. Since there was no color, I decided to convert this to black and white. I boosted the contrast quite a bit to make this pop and played with some dodging and burning around the edges to emphasize the arch. The winds were so strong, that it made the canyons beneath almost disappear into the distance and the La sal mountains non existent. I always see the typical sunstar under the arch shot, so I went out on a limb and went in a different direction. Let me know what you think. Better quality on my website.


Canon 7d
Canon 17-40mm @ 17mm
ISO 400
f/11
1/800 sec
13 vertical images stitched in PS