This picture was taken during my recent first visit to Arches National Park. After researching potential sunrise spots, I settled on Delicate Arch. This distinctively beautiful sandstone natural work of art has been widely photographed, but most frequently at sunset. So I thought sunrise might give me something somewhat unique.

The morning was brisk and slightly overcast. When I arrived at the parking lot for the trail, I was pleased to see only a couple of other vehicles in the lot. I donned my camera pack and set off on the trail for the reasonably short (1 1/2 mile) hike to the arch. As I crested the last rise, I was greeted with a sudden, surprisingly close view of the arch itself, with an early dawn backdrop of the La Sal mountains some 40 miles in the distance.

This image is one of the first few that I captured. Still, the sun is not yet above the horizon during the 'blue hour'. However, it is starting to brightly under-light the scattered striated clouds in the sky, which are in turn reflecting light down onto the rocks around me and, as I had hoped, back into the arch itself.

I hoped to catch a soft glow within the 'hoop' of the arch before the increasing ambient light caused it to disappear. The effect only lasted for a few moments, seconds really, but I was able to capture it and am pleased with the final result.