If you've never seen a sunrise in New York City, you're missing out on one of the more beautiful experiences this world has to offer. I don't make that statement lightly. The interplay of man-made beauty and natural beauty that occurs on a New York morning is surreal.

Many photographers choose to focus their sunrise photography efforts on capturing the sun and sky, facing their lenses east. For this VAST photo, I chose to direct my lens westward towards the New York skyline which was reflecting the sunrise transpiring behind me. This is the interplay of man and nature that I love so much: buildings gleaming in the bouquet of beautiful hues nature has provided.

Hours before this scene happened, I was setting up my panorama gear in the dark of night on top of a private building in Queens. It was freezing cold and a snowstorm had left a blanket of snow in which I had to work. The dark city loomed in front of me. It was 5am on a winter Sunday with a new moon so it was about the darkest the city ever gets. My cold fingers were a constant nag to head back inside to warmth - and the uninspiring, dark skyline didn't provide much motivation.

Shortly after 6am the skyline slowly began to brighten. I turned around and faced east to see the horizon beginning to glow. It was this glow that was illuminating the cityscape.

At this point, it was just a matter of waiting for the perfect moment when the skyline was its brightest relative to the sky behind it. I love moments like this because they provide a stark contrast between foreground and background, leading the foreground to pop out of the image. Furthermore, we are accustomed to cityscape photos where the skyline is darker than the sky behind it, so this scene, with its inverted lighting, made for a particularly unique image.

At 6:42am, the moment was perfect. The 845 United Nations Plaza tower was brightly aglow with the fire of the swiftly progressing sunrise. I began shooting the 42 exposures that comprise this panorama of the New York City skyline. I needed to do so as quickly as possible to ensure consistent lighting and to capture the moment before it passed.

In this ultra-high-resolution scene are thousands of windows, home to countless New Yorkers awakening to a beautiful sunrise.

Note: A small part of the southern tip of Roosevelt Island was originally visible in the lower-right corner of this image but has been edited out of the final image for artistic intent.