Morning Delight

I like the comp and the sky is gorgeous. For whatever reason, the sky feels disconnected from the land. The light in the sky seems to be coming from the left, which would be correct for a sunrise perspective at WP (light from the the east), but the shadows from the rock ridges (mostly in the center) seems to have light coming from the right (which would be the west). Hard to put this together. Just an observation. Certainly some beautiful colors and shapes here.

Edit: Based on your comments, John, I must be misreading this. Directionally, I thought this was looking sort of southwesterly, but that wouldn't jive with the right side being the toward the east, so I'm sure I'm turned around somehow. You really hit the light jackpot with what you started with that morning. What a dramatic change.

I'll never tire of seeing the swirling and twisted sandstone patterns here in photos. Like Tony noted the light looks a bit displaced, but nothing that detracts this from being a pleasing image.

Nothing escapes your eyes, Tony. Sunrise was from right side, at least in late April when I was there. There were thick clouds coming in from the east (right). The sun just peeked out from the gap in clouds for a brief moment. That is why the sky looks brighter towards west (left) and darker toward east. I have already brightened up the right side of sky by a lot.

Thanks for your comments. Your work is always my inspiration when I take pictures in Southwest. Also, I am studying your luminosity masks right now.

Love the leading lines, texture and colours here John, great work.

Oh yeah - what a great shot, John.

I really really like this, the red sky with red rock. It does look a touch disjointed sort of like two combined exposures but the overall result is never-the-less extremely pleasing and would doubtless grace anybody's wall.

Thanks Peter, Neale, Andreas, and Ian.

Ian, I did blend two exposures together. One for the sky and the other for the foreground, mostly because the red cloud was too bright. This technique sometimes creates HDR-like side effect, that is something I need to be careful. Thanks to point out.

Fantastic. The curves on the ground are striking. The red clouds are gorgeous.

John this is impressive, I should be visiting this place one day and get as lucky as you are!

Well done!

Beautiful color, John. The foregound lines lead my eye through the scene very well. The one nit that I have is that the foreground does appear to be too bright for the sky.

Nice fg rock curves and low angle. I like the way the line curves into the image and up towards the gap in the rocks. However, the sky at that point on the horizon seems a little flat or less bright than I would have expected. I thought a brighter sky there would be nice since my eye is led up to that section. Even so, I'm really enjoying this image. Great color throughout. Large version color looks ok on my monitor

Thanks Yiming, Abdulla, Brian and David.

This is absolutely gorgeous, John. It's not too often one sees such wonderful skies at this place, and your composition complements those skies extremely well. As noted, there is a slight disconnect between the skies and the landscape, but it's an easy fix.
I'd love to see a repost of this one!

Nice!

A great sky to complete your comp.

NIce colors and details.

I like the draw of the lines in the photo.
Huge DOF.
Color and texture; not much missing if anything.
Very nice.
the fisch

Beautiful shot, John! I love the colors of the sandstone, and the leading lines.
For me the colors doesn't look different on the larger version. But it doesn't look so sharp and without more details - just a magnified version of the small one.
As for the clouds, my first impression was that it doesn't separete much from the landscape. It has similar colors as well.
(it also shows that you did a great job with the blending) Anyway, nothing that I would change here.

I love this, John. I particularly like your usage of the leading line to take you not directly toward the typically-centered formations on the left, but rather to the open middle section. It feels as if I'm being beckoned to explore further through that pass - and as though perhaps this landscape continues indefinitely in that direction. Exposure and processing are spot-on. I appreciate the fact that you didn't blow the reds in the sky, as is commonly seen on sunrises/sunsets like this. I can't wait to visit WP.

Beautiful lines leading the eye to the horizon. Must be an amazing place!