Arizona State Fair Photography Contest

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In late 2010, I scouted this location at the foothills of the McDowell Mountains, seeking a spot to get the Cholla cacti backlit at sunrise. When I found this spot, I used an iPhone app called The Photographer's Ephemeris which showed me when the sun would rise in this general area between the mountains, which turned out to be early March. So I waited the three months which seemed like forever. On the morning I took this, I got there about a half hour before sunrise to try and find the best point of view. I moved the tripod three times until I discovered this spot. Once the sun popped up I knew I had to work fast: I took six images at 24mm, one stop apart all at f/14, ISO 100 to try and capture the most dynamic range that I could (that sun is BRIGHT when it rises, and moves fast)... took less that 30 seconds to capture everything. During that sequence, two birds landed on top of the midground pipe cactus which was great. They aren't easy to see in a small image, but on a 30x45" canvas wrap I recently did for a client they really show up.

I used Photomatix to blend the 6 images into an HDR file, and tweaked it to have a very real look, not the usual HDR dreamy effect.

Equipment used: Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 16-35mm lens, Manfrotto tripod and head. No filters were used, the long sunrays are due to the small aperture and slow shutter speeds.