Valley of Fire Bloom

Valley of Fire Challenge

On a recent trip home from a car show in Las Vegas, I took a detour through Valley of Fire State Park.  As is often the case when I can snatch some time for photography, it was in the middle of a bright, sunny, windy, hot, cloudless day.  So I didn't bother taking shots of all the red cliffs because the colors would be washed out, there would be deep shadows and the sky would be plain and boring.  So I found this scene with one lone bloom and used it as the focal point for my composition.  Because the flower was relatively small and not very colorful against the red sand, I used a wide angle lens and shot very close in order to exaggerate its size.