Light of the New Year by Pcoskun

This is the first image I photographed of 2015. I knew there was still plenty of snow around this area, and it was quite evident that many others also knew of this as the roads were crowded and the trailheads packed full of cars. Upon driving out to my unintended destination, I saw the snow off in the distance from the highway and began thinking of the possibility of snow at one of my favorite peaks. I decided to take a chance and head out to a place that seems to be my go to location for the new year to try my luck. After turning down the dirt road that felt like a highway I noticed there was hardly any snow left where I was hoping it would be. It was too late now to turn around and get to my alternate destination with about two hours til sunset. I luckily found a parking spot and made my way up and down the trail, off trail, side to side, over boulders, etc looking for the composition I wanted. It turns out just walking down a very old and abandoned trail revealed this scene overlooking plentiful saguaros and the magnificent peaks I was looking to photograph. As the sun began to set, I fired off a series of frames of this scene using a telephoto lens. This originally ended up being a seven image stitch, but too much empty space on the sides made me want to crop it to a more measly five image stitch and a humungous master file. I was hoping that the skies would catch much more color, but a thick cloud band I could not see on the horizon took that chance away. Anyways, thanks for looking! via 500px http://ift.tt/1xBs54a