It's actually quite incredible the lengths photographers go to in order to obtain an image. I think many people take short dabbles into the arts of photography. Everyone has a camera attached to their smart phone these days, and those cameras are capable of incredible results. One of the photographers I admire greatly shoots nothing but a Samsung phone but always with interesting perspective, technique, and you could say he has an eye for it. I think many people want to have an eye for it, but then developing this creative talent is actually quite hard work. It's just like gardening, as you plant creative ideas, they grow, and then they change, and take on a life of their own.
Part of the frustrating art of photography is when the shots I thought were sure to be great, don't end up that way. The thing with photography is failure is much more common than success. Out of maybe 500 images I hope for one or two photographs that are worth showing to the world.
This photograph is a panoramic stitch, and it's the only way to accomplish extraordinarily high resolution. The image is about 1GB total, and could be printed extremely large with fantastic sharp results. It's four photographs combined, and each of these photographs is actually quite amazing and beautiful in itself.
To get to this location I needed a high clearance off roading vehicle. It's a special remote place, that few are fortunate to get to, and requires incredible resources, and timing to accomplish. Error here can result in death, or thousands of dollars in towing expenses. Fortunately the sand was hardened by rain less than a few days earlier, and even so my vehicle lost traction, and there were moments of fear of getting stuck. The thing is at the end of the day being in the place is spiritual. The photograph really doesn't do the experience justice, but I try my best to share what these beautiful places are like.
I was contemplating a crop here. And one of the unfortunate things is that the far left frame I stitched in, is about 80% sharp. Of course you can't tell on the small file, or a web file, but if I printed this large, I'd probably have to crop that frame out, or work on balancing the sharpness somehow. The small file doesn't really do this justice, but that's nearly always the case.
