I just returned from a very productive trip down to Zion National Park in southwest Utah. The colors were at there peak in the Narrows, so I spent three days hiking up there. The last day that I went, I took my good friend and photographer Rod Hanna on his first trip up canyon. We took our time shooting whatever caught our attention and came away with a lot of good images.

I decided to try something a little different with this shot of a lone cottonwood tree against the red canyon wall. I figured a vertical panorama would let me include the river in the foreground and the streaked canyon wall above the tree without losing focus on the tree itself. This is a combination of six separate images that were stiched together in Photoshop. After a little tweaking in Lightroom, I was happy with the final product. I hope you agree!