IR shot from Sedona

There's quite a story behind this picture. My family was out from NY for a few weeks and on our way back from the Grand Canyon, we spent a few days in Sedona. On our last day there we decided to take a drive around the Red Rock Loop which provides views of some great rock formations. We had stopped at one scenic overlook and were heading out when our cursed rental car (3rd in a row with serious problems... really long story) died and just wouldn't start. My father and I played around under the hood for a while and got finally got the car to start and so we proceeded around the loop. Coming around a turn, the scene below was presented to us. The sun was setting behind us and lighting up the buttes in front of us just as the moon was rising in front of us. Since all of this, the light and the rising moon, was very short lived in its most pleasing form (the golden hour to the extreme when you consider the moon) we were actually quite lucky that the car broke down when it did. If it hadn't we would have driven right by this since the moon wouldn't have been up, and the setting sun wouldn't have been so dramatic on the rocks. Needless to say, I took quite a lot of photos of the scene. Many color and a series of four IR shots which captured the last few moments of sunlight. This is my favorite of the four IR shots. I'll have to post all four in sequence at some point, but I haven't actually processed all of them. Anyway, here's the shot:




What do you think?

Dave

 

thanks for the comments... and about the car...

I didn't get into all of our car problems. As it turned out we went through three different vans on that one trip, each had more problems than the one before it. The last one had us driving south from Sedona to Phoenix in the middle of the night with the headlights cutting out intermittently. Needless to say, our opinion of Budget took a serious hit after that trip.

About the crop you suggest. I've cropped it like that, and the result is quite pleasing. Thanks for the suggestion.

Dave

P.S. To get around the red x stuff (which I still haven't figured out) you can follow the link below to see the photo:

http://www.pbase.com/manzico/image/38333871/original