When traveling in the sun-kissed desert that is the American Southwest, you have lots of different amazing landscapes which you can choose to go see.  There’s no shortage of color, shape, and wonder to be found.  Each location is unique with vastly different landscape features to admire and photograph.  However, I keep going back to Bryce Canyon.

I’ve been pursuing getting the perfect photo of Inspiration Point at Bryce Canyon for several trips now.  Every time, it has eluded me.  Those early mornings of getting up before dawn and driving into the canyon to be in place for the sun to rise have taken a bit of a toll on my morale.  But all that’s over.  My persistence paid off and I finally got my shot.

I’d been chasing the shot of the upper observation point this whole time.  Who knew that my shot would come from a different location altogether?

I do have to say it was a serious relief to not make that short 2 minute but very steep hike in the dark.  At that elevation, it leaves me winded every time and I come from the mountains of Idaho.  I live in high elevation but not that high.

After I captured this photograph, I decided to wait for the sun to rise and see what else I could get.  This time of year, the sun is coming from the northernmost points in the sky.  It was well worth the extra time.  Sadly, this portion of the canyon is facing the wrong direction to have the sun come up over the top but I got as close as I could.

As the sun rises up over the edge of the canyon on the horizon, there’s only a few seconds to capture a photo like this.  Then the sun gets too bright and the landscape becomes too dark.  Since I knew that it would be an option, I decided to try for a sunburst in this shot.  I felt it would add that little extra something to an otherwise decent but not spectacular landscape photo.  I was right.

On the way back down to the parking lot, I decided I wanted to check out what some of the trees on the rim might do for a photo.  After all, trees with character are always something of interest.  All I had to do was to find the right tree with the right look.  I found it.

There was only one problem with the shot.  There was a lady, wrapped in a blanket against the high altitude and early morning cold, seated on the extended root on the left.  She was enjoying the view of a sun-kissed desert morning and rightly so.  Thankfully, she agreed to move for a couple minutes to let me get my shot.

With this shot, the sun was already over the horizon line.  However, I noticed that I could get the sun in between both trunks of this dead tree.  It seemed like a good idea.  Then I thought about turning the sun into a sunburst here too.  That was the final element to make this photo into something extraordinary.

Everything was perfect that morning for me to come back with no less than 3 photos of Bryce Canyon.  The sun-kissed desert yielded up much more than expected.  I take great pleasure adding these new landscape photos to my portfolio.  All in all, it was a great trip even if I did have to wake up extraordinarily early and drag myself to the canyon’s edge again.  What a rare kind of photography trip this was.