Badlands Teepees at the break of day

In photography nothing beats the first and last light of the day, when the sun is located under the horizon and the surrounding mountains start to glow in an incredibly soft way. True "Alpenglow" is made up of diffuse redirected light and usually originates within the lower atmosphere where clouds and particles in the air act as a giant reflector. Special places - like the one shown here as this month's image - sometimes require multiple visits until you finally get the perfect conditions during twilight hours, but they usually are worth all the efforts. And we were lucky, on our 4th attempt we were already able to create the composition we had in mind with the Painted Desert Teepees in the foreground. And it was amazing to see how the mountain silhouettes in the distance "glowed" twice that morning: It happend well before sunrise when they were bathed in a soft golden alpenglow and then again as soon as the first rays of the sun touched the Earth. But the second "glow" didn't last long and quickly casted some harsh shadows - it was not nearly as impressive as the one we had witnessed and shot before.

We absolutely love the Painted Desert and all those fantastic multicolored layers of silt, mudstone and shale. During our last "Spring Photography Tour" in April/May 2019 we didn't just visit slot canyons, the wildflowers at Factory Butte, White Pocket and the Coyote Buttes South, but also some well-known and some pretty remote badlands throughout the American Southwest. Most of images are now online and you can take a look at them in the archive (-> April & May 2019). Hope you enjoy!

Note: Our "New Work" album is limited to 50 images and updated from time to time, that's why some of the newer images are not there anymore.

Image data: 30 s at f/14, ISO 500; Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM at 105 mm, Canon EOS 5D Mark IV