Badwater Dawn (2011)
Death Valley National Park, CA

In wet years rain water can collect on the Badwater playa.  It's a brief phenomenon, sometimes lasing but a few weeks or even days.  For the third year in a row we were fortunate to experience this unique situation.

The morning we photographed sunrise at Badwater we were rewarded with one of the most glorious sunrise I have ever beheld in Death Valley.  The colors were breathtaking and the way the pink clouds swooped up into the sky was uplifting.  I felt a wonderful sense of exhilaration and joy that I tried to capture in this image.