I almost didn't stop for this photo, now it's one of my favorites.

We left Kanab, Utah headed back to Las Vegas to catch our flight for home after an amazing photographic trip. We traveled through Zion National Park as a pass-through (hard to believe). I didn't feel bad about the hurried pace of our travel as it was raining heavily and many of the great scenes in Zion were obscured by the clouds, rain and strong winds. Also, we had meandered through the park just days before on our way to Kanab. But remember this, if nothing else - storms in the mountains often give way to dramatic skies and those rains often bring out deep, saturated colors and unanticipated drama.

I've photographed this lone pine on several previous visits but this time through, as I made the bend around the dangerous curve where this scene is located, I hit the brakes looking for a safe place to pull over (not much traffic out during the storm). The winds were spectacular, whipping dust up from the sandstone mesas as I scrambled up the slickrock to get to this vantage point. About 50 yards behind me, a female photographer was running, too, having seen the scene that was unfolding with the retreating clouds. She hollered back to her male companion in their car to bring her a different lens. We were both being pelted by rains and tried to keep our balance against the gales.

I quickly composed several frames, handholding the camera as steadily as I could. I love the resulting positioning of the clouds that offset the bonsai-like Jeffrey Pine, and the dark gray clouds offsetting the deep orange sandstone.

This image captured everything that came together for that one perfect moment.

Canon EOS 5D, Tamron 28-105 f/2.8, SP Aspherical LD @42mm, 1/200 sec @f/11, ISO equiv 400, Handheld