The Grand Canyon was the first stop during my first American road trip. I only had one crack at a sunrise shot, and I found a pretty sweet spot the previous afternoon with no crowds. Unfortunately I woke a little late, and knew I had to improvise. My only option was to head out to the close-by, but rather crowded Mather point. I arrived just as the sun popped over the horizon. I was happy to see people in the lower left as they added a welcome human element and sense of scale to the image.
Well yes so I joined the masses of Landscape wannabes and pro's with a sunrise shot at Mesa Arch in Canyonlands. I visited the states for the first time in my life and it was awesome to tick this one off the list. I remember watching Baraka for the first time and this was always a place I wanted to see for myself after that. The easy approach for many a photographer is to compose the arch from the left and it soon got very crowded. My buddy and I searched for something else and got way closer to the arch in the right hand corner, we were both pretty chuffed with ourselves for being so "uniquely" baddass! I bracketed 5 shots for this one and used the "merge to 32bit HDR" plugin for lightroom to achieve realistic dynamic range.