Created from 105 individual exposures taken over many hours, "New York Transitions I" captures the dawn of a new day in New York City. I wanted to portray the magic of the skyline at both nighttime and daytime in a single image so I planned to create a VAST photo that transitioned from night to day as you move from left to right in the image. Furthermore, I wanted to create the photo at a special time when the city looked particularly radiant, so I waited for a snowstorm to gild the city in white...

Heavy clouds thick with snow blanketed the sky on an unusually cold morning. After reviewing the forecast for many inches of snow followed by a sudden clearing of the sky at night, I decided to prepare for a photoshoot of the city from the top of one of the tallest buildings between downtown Manhattan and the iconic Midtown Manhattan skyline.

As the day turned to night, the snow continued falling, coating the usually-dark rooftops of the city with a sheen of white powder. Then, in a matter of minutes, the snow ceased and the clouds whisked away to the east, leaving a perfectly clear sky. The moonlight sparkled off of the snow-covered buildings and the clear atmosphere provided amazing views for miles in every direction. The city stretched before me, filled with glowing windows, energetic arterial avenues, and Saturday-evening festivities.

Reveling in the scene, I began exposing the long-exposure images that make up the left-side nighttime portions of the final photo. The fervor of cars racing up the avenues into the heart of the city rendered a beautiful glow on the buildings. Over the course of two hours, I meticulously recorded every last high resolution detail of this nighttime winter wonderland using a long telephoto lens mounted on my Canon 5Ds which I rotated using an extremely precise gimbal.

The sky began to illuminate with the faint glow of the swiftly oncoming sunrise and so I started shooting the regions of the image to be used for the center and right sections of the final photo. The sky grew brighter with each passing minute, casting the entire city in a heavenly light. Complementing this were the typically-drab rooftops that were now now shining with their thick coats of bright white snow. A handful of cars meandered up 6th avenue, some early-risers strolled down the West Village's sidewalks, and plumes of steam danced from faraway rooftops. The storm had quieted some of the usual activity, so the city was even more peaceful than it normally is on a Sunday morning.

As sunrise transitioned to daytime, I wrapped up shooting the very far-right sections of the image and packed up my equipment. Then began the long process of stitching and blending the 105 raw images into a final polished VAST photo. No detail was left untouched during this arduous process that took me well over 100 hours due to the exceptionally high resolution of the photo's canvas.

It was time well spent because the clarity of the final VAST photo cannot be overstated. Buildings many miles away are clearly visible; tiny details such as people walking down the sidewalks are easily discernible; fascinating rooftop structures covered in snow drifts are revealed in striking resolution; facades of numerous architectural masterpieces such as the Empire State Building are exquisitely rendered; and the diverse characters of famous New York neighborhoods like the West Village, Chelsea, SoHo, and Gramercy can be palpably felt.

Details like these fill every nook of this VAST photo, nestled among the melodic rhythm of the city's iconic skyline transitioning from night to day.

Explore this photo further

Yosemite National Park might be my favorite place on planet Earth. Both for taking landscape photos, and for standing in awe of nature, traveling through the expansive wilderness of Yosemite is simply incredible. Living within close proximity to this natural wonder has made me very fortunate, and I have been able to travel here to take photographs on average around two times a year. I have been to Yosemite in every season, and have explored the major accessible attractions, as well as the deeper wilderness that you can only get to via multi-day hike.

The view of Half-Dome and the surrounding Yosemite Valley from the Glacier Point lookout is one that many visitors will be familiar with. Very few people however, have experienced it in the dramatic setting that I was fortunate enough to be in when I took this VAST photo. As sundown approached, most travelers have left and a thunderstorm was quickly approaching. I climbed down below the path to find the optimal place where no trees were in the way, and I waited for the moment when the clouds had perfectly crept into half of the frame. With the occasional lightning in the distance, and a slow increase of rain began to fall on my position, I quickly captured the 85 individual photographs that would make up this VAST photo.

Putting in the work to create such an ultra high resolution VAST photo of this stormy Yosemite sunset compared with an ordinary photo was very worth it. When viewed very large, you can see in incredible detail many of the famous Yosemite Valley attractions, such as Vernal Falls, Nevada Falls, Half Dome, the valley floor and the Merced river running through it.

Explore this photo further

All of my artwork is primarily influenced by nature and environmentalism. Through my work, my main goal is to create elaborate, photorealistic images that carry a message of conservation and sustainability. I want to give viewers a space of contemplation by depicting beautifully idealized scenes of the natural world.

This piece was created as a diptych featuring a highly stylized and patterned vision of the jungle canopy, with tropical plants, hibiscus flowers, and red macaws. I wanted to create a beautiful and captivating image that would also draw attention to these quickly vanishing natural habitats.

To create this image I photographed all of the imagery at a few botanical gardens, horticultural centers, public parks, and aviaries. Then I use a complex process of digital imaging in Adobe Photoshop to composite the imagery together. The final image is actually made up of more than 50 photographs meticulously pieced together. This process required a lot of effort building up the final seamless image, figuring out the lighting, shadows, color, and other effects to make it look realistic. Each image is carefully planned out and created as an intricately layered construction, which gives it such a hyper-real, illustrative quality.

"Canopy" has been featured in Vogue, Create Magazine, AIGA, and was a winner in the 'collage' category for the International Photography Awards.

Explore this photo further

The powerful peak of \"les drus\" captured above the sea of ice in Chamonix Mont Blanc. The mountain is all frosted after a storm.

Explore this photo further

The United States Capitol Building, home of the United States Congress and legislative branch of the federal government. With its distinctive neoclassical style architecture, it was originally completed in 1800. It has been expanded over time with the Capitol Dome, and completed in 1863 after being adorned by the Statue of Freedom that sits atop the dome. Arguably the most recognizable building in the United States, the Capitol Building attracts millions of visitors per year.

I've truly taken for granted growing up in Arlington, Virginia, a mere bridge crossing away from Washington, D.C. As my passion for travel has grown over the years, so has my appreciation for what I have at home, especially since moving into D.C. proper in 2015. Being local, I have the luxury to be picky about when and what I shoot in this tourist-friendly city.

After spending a day sightseeing with the kids downtown, I made a strategic stop by the U.S. Capitol Building to both enjoy the inspiring and architecturally impressive building with my children and to get a feel for the U.S. Capitol Police on duty. I could sense it would be a good sunset that cold winter day. Being Super Bowl Sunday, I thought it wouldn't be too crowded so I returned that evening with fingers crossed that the U.S. Capitol Police would allow me to use my tripod. I was fortunate that day with both the officers on duty and the sky, and I was able to capture a tighter shot of the building with a vibrant sunset.

Standing in front of the Capitol of the United States of America brings a mix of emotions, among those national pride as well as awe of the structure itself. I wanted to mix two elements to make this dynamic image. While winter can oftentimes bring overcast and gloomy days, it also can bring some of the most beautiful skies with bold red, pink, and orange colors. The opportunity to photograph the vibrant winter sunset along with the splendor of one of the most iconic buildings in the United States was the icing on the cake of a great day in Washington, D.C.

Explore this photo further

Over 160 hours in the making, "A New York Dream" is the culmination of a monumental undertaking that took more than a year to complete.

I wanted to create an extremely high resolution photographic artwork that captured the vibrant energy our city continually bursts forth with - a seemingly chaotic energy that nevertheless has structure, order, and rhythm.

To do this, I first needed to find a location from which to gather source material for the skyline. After hours researching and scouting locations, I found a perfect place on a rooftop in Queens. This elevated vantage point provided an unobstructed view of the entire undulating Midtown Manhattan skyline.

A few weeks later on New Years Eve, my assistant and I ascended to the empty rooftop. A thick blanket of low-hanging clouds, aglow with the city lights, hugged the skyline. It was beautifully tranquil. We began exposing the 189 individual images that would eventually comprise this VAST photo. Each image was only a small section of the overall scene, but together the ensemble represented a full visual catalog of the scene that lay before us. We wrapped up shooting around 2am and disassembled our equipment amid a light sprinkling of rain.

Upon returning home, I carefully color-graded each individual exposure and began creating a unified visual construct around which to build the final creation. Over the course of 2017, I slowly and painstakingly warped, stitched, and masked layer after layer of city skyline to build on top of one another in the composite image. My goal was to try to retain the natural feel of the skyline (with relative geographic locations of buildings as intact as possible) while simultaneously creating a visual aesthetic that was balanced and pleasingly rhythmic.

A stunning 9,563 megapixels of image data were used to create the final 602-megapixel VAST photo. This unprecedented volume of image data (9.6 billion pixels!) has resulted in an incredibly sharp image that can be enlarged to dozens of square feet and still remain perfectly sharp to the naked eye. Hidden treasures fill the details of the scene: American flags proudly waving in the breeze, New Years Eve parties lighting up windows, architectural flourishes adorning impressive buildings, and more. Crowning the top of the VAST photo is the Empire State Building, keeping watch over the city beneath her.

One year after the origination of my idea for this VAST photo, I'm finally proud to share it with you. I hope it elicits some of the captivating New York energy I worked so hard to capture in it.

"A New York Dream" has been featured in My Modern Met. Read more about it in the article here.

Explore this photo further

Explore this photo further

Few people ever notice the unblemished perfection found in a newborn leaf. Every spring, if the conditions are just right, a new crop of leaves bursts forth and, for a few fleeting days, remains untainted by the elements.

It has been a goal of mine to capture this delicate purity for many years. However, each year, the possibility of finding this state of affairs in the natural world is incredibly slim. A number of factors have to come together for a perfect leaf to naturally form, beginning with an early-spring that is free from harsh frosts or driving rainstorms. Additionally, the leaves need to be in an area that is protected from adverse conditions such as falling debris, high insect activity, poor soil, or any other of a number of issues which could damage the developing foliage.

After spending years neurotically keeping an eye out for the perfect patch of newborn leaves, I finally found them one late-April day in 2017.

A light morning rain had just fallen and I was at the New York Botanical Garden with the aim of capturing a particular "Snowdrift" Crabapple tree. After a few hours spent creating that photo, I was walking through the Luce Herb Garden when I spotted a low-lying patch of hosta whose fresh leaves were still in the process of unfurling.

A few droplets of rain remained scattered across the foliage and the thinly overcast sky created a beautiful soft light that highlighted the leaves without casting them in too harsh an aesthetic. Furthermore, these lighting conditions enabled the white-rimmed leaves to "pop" out of the image, representing their upward climbing journey that had just begun.

Creating this VAST photo was particularly challenging because it needed to be shot directly downward. This required setting up the support structure in a unique fashion that enabled it to remain outside the field of view. Additionally, I had to shoot most of the frames used in the final photo blind, because I was unable to perch myself above the 6-feet-tall equipment to look through the viewfinder. I happily accepted these challenges because, after years hunting for the perfect patch of newborn leaves, I was going to do whatever it took to capture this VAST photo of nature in its most flawless state.

Explore this photo further

Explore this photo further

Explore this photo further

Explore this photo further

As 2016 was drawing to a close, I reflected on how to pay tribute to a year that, for many Americans, was more somber than most. Something just didn't feel right about creating a VAST photo culminating 2016 in the heart of the Times Square New Years Eve celebration as many New York photographers are wont to do. Furthermore, the Times Square festivities have become commercialized to the point of being repulsive in recent years. So, I decided to do something different.

After days of researching and scouting for a location that would provide a pensive, quiet, and reflective atmosphere, I found a rooftop in Long Island City, Queens. This elevated location provided a narrow view across the East River into the heart of midtown Manhattan and the Times Square ball drop. However, its distance from the commotion allowed for the majority of the photo's composition to be filled with the peaceful windows of ordinary New Yorkers commemorating the close of 2016 in their own unique ways.

A few hours before midnight on New Years Eve, my assistant and I ascended to the empty roof and began exposing the 189 individual photos that would eventually comprise this VAST photo. The quietness of the scene was only broken by the swirling wind and the gentle sounds of the distant city that were carried by it.

As midnight approached, the low-hanging cloud bank above Times Square glowed brightly from the festivities' pyrotechnics. A chorus of revelers counting down the last remaining seconds of the year could be heard in the distance. We kept shooting the long exposures used for this photo as the new years moment passed, the window lights began to turn off, and a light sprinkle of rain began to fall.

The world fell into an unusually still silence as we completed our shoot and the clock passed 2am. Most of the city had now gone to bed, putting to rest 2016 and awaiting the hopeful 2017 that would greet them in the morning.

Explore this photo further

Dan Piech's "Concrete Canvas" series captures the accidental beauty that serendipitously occurs when the concrete beneath New Yorkers' feet is inadvertently graced by spilled paint, fallen debris, expanding cracks, chemical stains, and other delightful visual elements. An avid runner, Piech has spent over three years traversing every single Manhattan street in search of these overlooked "artworks" that have become part of the fabric of the city.

As the founder of the VAST artist collective, Piech uses advanced imaging techniques and equipment to create unprecedented gigapixel-quality photographs that capture every intricate detail of these ephemeral designs. The exceptionally high resolution photographs are then printed in large formats, resulting in impeccably precise physical replicas of the walkways.

Each Concrete Canvas piece embodies the unique soul of New York and challenges us to find beauty in the overlooked, the accidental, the minuscule, and the transient.

Explore this photo further

The Montgomery Redwood Grove is one of only a handful of old-growth redwood groves that were protected from the heavy logging that took place in Northern California in the early 20th century. After the 1906 earthquake, the fires that consumed all of San Francisco meant that the city had to be rebuilt, and that meant lumber. Where there used to be endless groves of gigantic coastal redwoods throughout the Pacific Northwest, now there are only a handful left, preserved by forward-thinking land owners.

In this vertical VAST photo, it was my goal to convey how tall these magnificent trees are. When displayed as a VAST Print on a wall, the viewer can feel like they are there, standing among the giant redwoods.

I can’t believe how great the conditions were for this shoot. As a photographer, you can do everything right, but if the weather doesn’t agree with you it becomes an entirely different picture. Once the sun dipped below the tree line, the light became warmer in tone, and since I was the only one here, the only noise was the creek slowly making it’s way through the valley floor. I was completely alone, and it was a magically peaceful moment that I was able to capture in this unique VAST photo.

Explore this photo further

On this particular morning, I didn't need an alarm to wake me up at 3:30 AM. I was already awake with excitement for the wilderness that lay before me.

I left my camper and was in my kayak by 4:00 AM on the most still water I have ever experienced. I paddled in complete darkness for over an hour before I saw a sliver of golden light on the horizon. The sky began glowing a faint shade of orange so I picked up the pace, determined to finish my nine-mile journey before the sun crested the top of the mountains.

I was alone, absolutely and completely alone, on this mountainous lake in the Canadian Rockies. The only sounds were from my paddle dipping into the water, and the only ripples on the water were from my boat.

At last, three hours later, I arrived at the sacred Spirit Island. I pulled my kayak onto the shore and unloaded my camera gear. In a hurry, I found the location for the best composition and set up my tripod and camera. There was a slight mist over the water and not one single sound but for the occasional call of a loon.

I felt like the only person alive on earth as the sun peaked over the horizon and began lighting the mountainsides. It was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. As the sun continued to rise, I created this VAST photo to capture the essence of this magical moment in the Rocky Mountains, a moment I will never forget.

Explore this photo further

At night, New York City is a sublimely magical place, illuminated with a fervor of melodic activity. Conveying the uniquely captivating atmosphere of the world's greatest city via the written word is a daunting challenge. Consequently, for the better part of two centuries, photographers have attempted to portray the city's magic in ways that words cannot. This exceptionally high resolution VAST photo is my humble attempt to capture a tiny fraction of that magic.

Heavy clouds, thick with snow, blanketed the sky on an early-January morning in 2017, the type of idyllic winter morning that reminds New Yorkers why they tolerate the cold months. After reviewing the forecast for many inches of snow followed by a sudden clearing of the sky at night, I decided to prepare for a photoshoot of the city from the top of one of the tallest buildings between downtown Manhattan and the iconic Midtown Manhattan skyline.

As the day turned to night, the snow continued falling, coating the usually-dark rooftops of the city with a sheen of white powder. Then, in a matter of minutes, the snow ceased and the clouds whisked away to the east, leaving a perfectly clear sky. The moonlight sparkled off of the snow-covered buildings and the clear atmosphere provided amazing views for miles in every direction. The city stretched before me, filled with glowing windows, energetic arterial avenues, and Saturday-evening festivities.

Giddy with excitement and reveling in the scene, I began exposing the 85 long-exposure images that make up this VAST photo. The fervor of cars racing up 6th avenue into the heart of the city continued uninterrupted during the two hours it took to meticulously record every last high resolution detail of this urban winter wonderland. In the weeks that followed, I spent over one hundred hours polishing and assembling the individual photos into this final VAST photo.

The clarity of this VAST photo cannot be overstated. Buildings nearly a dozen miles away are clearly visible. Tiny details such as footprint patterns in snow-covered parks are easily discernible. Fascinating rooftop structures covered in snow drifts are revealed in striking resolution. Groups of friends out for a night on the town fill the sidewalks. The diverse characters of famous New York neighborhoods like the West Village, Chelsea, SoHo, and Gramercy can be palpably felt. And facades of numerous architectural masterpieces such as the Empire State Building are exquisitely rendered.

Details like these fill every nook of this VAST photo, nestled among the melodic rhythm of the city's iconic skyline, a wonderland of New York City magic waiting to be explored.

Explore this photo further

Althought the light and the point of view are quite common, I like the sense of scale here . The mightiness of the mountains , of rock and ice.
We can see some people on the moraine ( bottom right ) to imagine the scale. They are hiking to "Laguna de los tres".

This is Poincenot and Fitz Roy Mountain.

Explore this photo further

At 5:11pm on July 25, 2016, New York City witnessed one of the most impressive lightning strikes ever photographed. An enormous bolt rocked Downtown Manhattan and Jersey City, completely spanning the Hudson River - and I had my camera set up to capture it.

It was a sweltering day at the height of summer and a thunderstorm was quickly approaching from the west, spreading an oil-slick of darkness in front of it. I've photographed countless storms, but as this particular one roared in from a distance, I knew it was going to be special. A beautiful wall cloud was quickly advancing in front of the rain curtain, electrifying the sky with cloud-to-ground lightning.

Brimming with excitement, I perched myself high up on a building in downtown Manhattan. The air, still thick with the smell of a sunny summer afternoon, was eerily calm as I set up my gear and began exposing images, hoping to capture one of these strikes branching out in front of the rain. Being exposed and elevated hundreds of feet outside with my camera wasn't the safest idea, but it was a risk I was willing to take.

Suddenly, an enormous bolt pierced the sky with a sound so deafening that my ears were ringing despite the hearing protection I had on. An incredible number of stepped leaders raced toward the ground, one of them connecting with a large metasequoia tree in Battery Park City, instantly exploding all 80 feet of it into thousands of pieces. Another one of the leaders crossed to the New Jersey side of the river and connected with a luxury high-rise not too dissimilar to the one that I was on.

For an instant, New York and New Jersey were joined by one of the most powerful forces in nature. It was a beautiful and humbling moment of sheer power.

I’ve spent over a decade chasing thunderstorms, exposing tens of thousands of images along the way, and coming closer than I’d like to being struck more times than I’d like to admit. Almost always, these occasions fail to yield any photographs worthy enough to show for the effort. The public is never privy to these empty harvests and the toll they take. However, as an obsessive photographer, I've continued to head out into storms time after time, undeterred, all in the hope of eventually having the good fortune to be granted an awe-inspiring moment like this.

You may be wondering how I created this exceptionally high resolution VAST photo. I spent hundreds of hours over the course of a year meticulously transforming the original 40-megapixel single-exposure photo into this 5,449-megapixel VAST photo that identically mimics the original.

Learn how I did it  

View the original single-exposure image  

Explore this photo further

The Montgomery Redwood Grove is one of only a handful of remaining old-growth redwood groves in this area of Northern California, due to heavy logging that took place in the early 20th century. After the 1906 earthquake, the fires that consumed all of San Francisco meant that the city had to be rebuilt, and that meant lumber. Where there used to be endless groves of gigantic coastal redwoods throughout the Pacific Northwest, now there are only a handful left, preserved by forward-thinking land owners.

The moment I came across this location, I knew that it deserved to become a VAST photo. Up against the creek in a clearing of the redwoods, there was a bed of ferns and a fallen tree. A small footbridge led the path throughout the ferns and across the stream. I knew that I wanted to incorporate all of these elements into the final photo.

One of my favorite things about being a photographer is that you start paying attention to light in a whole different way. Light isn’t just about exposure. Light is also about tone. Tone is how a photo makes you feel, and it has to do with the color temperature of the light source. Choosing your light source, direction, and and time of day are some of the ways that photographers can control the tone in an image.

To capture this photo the way I had envisioned, I waited for two hours before pressing the shutter, because I wanted the light to be perfect. I knew that once the sun was low enough below the tree line, the light would take on a softer, more golden quality. I also knew that I could position my camera to have the sun be on the edge of a tree, producing the distinct sunstar in the right side of the frame.

This place is nothing short of magical, and it was my goal to capture as much of that astounding natural beauty as possible, in a way that only a VAST photo can. With the path and the small footbridge, the viewer is able to get a sense of scale, and can imagine themselves being in this wonderful location.

Explore this photo further

The Watchman in Zion National Park is one of the areas most iconic and recognized feature. It sits prominently above the Southern entrance to the park and is part of a jagged ridge-line near The Watchman Campground. The bright colors of the rock that makeup this peak and the surrounding area are part of what makes this such a spectacular sight to behold.

To capture this VAST photo of The Watchman required that I stay camp in the park for a while. It was a priority for me that the leaves be changing color in the fall and have just the right level of yellow to add that extra bit of color to the final image. I was very lucky that the sunset proved to be as magical as it did, adding texture and color to the sky.

Those who visit Zion National Park are so enthralled by its physical beauty, that they often start planning their return visit before the first is even over. I am thrilled that I was able to capture even a sliver of its natural beauty and vibrancy in this VAST photo of The Watchman of Zion.

Explore this photo further

Dan Piech's "Aloft" series captures the breathtaking grandeur of the skies that so many of us take for granted as we soar through the air.

From his Manhattan home in Tribeca, Dan has an unobstructed view of one of the most trafficked airspaces on the planet. With sight-lines to numerous air routes, he has studied the New York sky and the planes that fill it for years. His series focuses on the best moments when sky and plane speak to one another.

As part of the VAST artist collective, Dan uses advanced imaging techniques and equipment to create the photos for his Aloft series at incredibly high resolutions, often dozens of times higher resolution than ordinary photos. This enables the prints from the photos to be perfectly sharp even at very large sizes.

Backdropped by the heavens, the tiny planes in Aloft humble us and remind us of our place on this beautiful planet.

Explore this photo further

An extravagant display of natural beauty takes place for a few moments in early November every year in New York City. At the peak of Autumn foliage colors, just after the sun rises, a famous tree-lined pathway in Central Park is transformed into something truly breathtaking.

The "Mall" is a quadruple row of American Elm trees towards the southern end of Central Park. It is the most important horticultural feature in one of the most famous parks in the world. Carefully maintained for over a century and a half, the Mall is one of the largest and last remaining stands of American Elm trees in North America, protected by the surrounding city from the 20th-century outbreak of the Dutch Elm Disease. Beneath the trees lies the a quarter-mile promenade, the only deliberately-straight line in the park.

It is to this promenade that I've come every year in early November to catch the first rays of the morning sun casting into the grove of golden-orange leaves. The low-hanging sun is able to illuminate the underside of the cathedral-like canopy of autumn foliage usually obscured by shadow. This brightens and saturates the already-beautiful colors on display.

Over the course of 4 hours spanning two mornings, I worked to capture this scene using the VAST technique, exposing 137 extremely high-quality photos that have now been merged together to produce one of the highest resolution images ever created. A scientific assessment estimates that there are more than 2 million individually distinct leaves visible in the full-resolution version of this photo. Some people have asked me why it's necessary to have a photo with this much resolution and my response has been that it is only fitting to document a scene this breathtaking in a manner that is equally stunning.

10% of the profit from sales of this photo will go to the Central Park Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that ensures the Park remains an oasis of natural beauty for current and future generations.

Note: an even larger version of this photo exists with a wider field-of-view. You can find it here.

Explore this photo further

Grand Prize Winner: Harry Williams Astrophotography Competition

Artistic Prize Winner: Harry Williams Astrophotography Competition

Comments from the judging body:

• "Such a wonderful evocative scene,"
• "Without doubt one of the finest nightscape images I have ever seen,"
• "Paul has succeeded here on many levels - composition, processing, colour and tonal range. A deserving winner!"

Explore this photo further

Visiting the Grand Canyon is always a highlight of any photo trip I take. Unfortunately, quite often, it's really hazy or there is just a plain "blue bird" sky. This visit was neither of those scenarios.

It was still midday when I arrived at the North Rim Visitor Center and went to capture Bright Angel Point. The wind was strong enough to easily blow my baseball cap away and I knew that would make it difficult to capture longer exposures due to wind shaking the camera.

By the time I made it to Cape Royal, a few clouds lingered and the wind had mercifully died down. Then, out of pure luck, the sunset at the perfect spot in the valley, lighting up the streaking clouds above and making for the best VAST photo from that entire trip.

Sometimes, just sometimes, it all works out.

Explore this photo further

When I first saw a picture of this mountain I knew I had to visit it with my camera. What jumped out at me was the green grass growing right up to the edge of the mountain. I had never before seen such a unique and special place.

I arranged a trip to this mountain in the Italian Dolomites specifically to get this photo. I took a gondola up the mountain and then hiked for two hours to reach this spot.

I waited for the sun to reach the horizon and the light turned warm and golden. The air was crisp and there was no sound as the sun created long shadows on the earth.

The moment was pure magic. The finished image speaks of serenity, warm light, and alpine beauty. It looks incredible in print and it would make a beautiful centerpiece in any room of your home.

Explore this photo further