Across the Southwest / Adam Schallau

Panoramic Dawn ~ Monument Valley

It’s time to start posting some new images again. Today I offer a panoramic of dawn over Monument Valley. I had actually captured this same scene 4 years ago with my old 6 megapixel Canon Rebel and cropped it down to create a panoramic crop. I loved that image but it was impossible to make a large print since I was only working with 3 megapixels after the crop.

For the past 4 years I’ve been wanting to recapture this scene, but this time with a better camera and with multiple images stitched together. I’ve tried many times but ran into many problems including clear skies, and high wind. Clear skies aren’t such a bad thing, other than they are quite boring for most landscape photography, but the wind would keep me from getting a sharp photo and would make it difficult to stitch together multiple images.

This past May I made another attempt. I was pleasantly surprised to awake to pleasant temperatures, soft clouds, and a calm breeze. I setup my camera and tripod in the dark (4:30am to be exact) and waited for first light. I knew from past attempts that I didn’t want any direct light on the landscape because the red rock in the foreground cliffs is very brilliant when the sunlight strikes it, distracting from the rest of the scene. I managed to capture the three exposures I needed just before the light started to illuminate the cliffs.

After stitching the three images together, the resulting image is 28.3 megapixels. At full resolution you can clearly see the West Mitten, Three Sisters, the “Hub”, and even Agathla Peak which is over 30 miles away (as the raven flies) near the town of Kayenta, Arizona.

This image is available in a limited edition of 50 prints. Please contact me for pricing and availability.