Angel's Landing Lone Tree

Angel's Landing hike in Zion was one of the most memorable times on my trip. Little did I know when I crested the first major hill and saw this magnificent tree that I was only at the beginning of the most exciting leg. Seeing this tree standing proudly with the sun beams peering through it made for a glorious moment that I stopped to photograph. To make it even more surreal, a Tibetan Monk walked up to me with wonder about what I was doing; so I showed him my stitched image. To top it all off, he pulled out an iPhone from his robe and asked me in very broken English which apps he needed to be able to stitch photos together so he too could create such beauty.

Now I know I joked about putting fires out at ESP in past blog posts, but this is honestly what happened that afternoon.

I was later told that when I was busy capturing the lone tree, the monk was posing for people to take his photograph among the Oriental looking scenery on the other side of the hill. Ahhh to be able to be in two places at once.

I chose to process this image in B&W using the Dynamic Light app. I saturate the clouds for even more drama. I also added some dodging and burning with Filterstorm. The frame came from Crop'n'Frame app. I tried some other techniques to try to sharpen the limbs of the trees more since the wind was blowing slightly which cause some blurring but none of them gave me the look I need to correct the problem.