Nature's Best

Congratulations! This is the Image of the Week selection for the Travel and Culture Gallery, week ending 4th November, 2011! >Click here for large version<

Arches NP in Utah is probably the most popular place in the world to photograph natural rock arches, but there are many other locations in this spectacular state that are just as interesting and that get much fewer visitors.

On our visit to Utah last year we came across this large hole in a rock face, and at first sight it didn't look very interesting.

When it started raining, we walked around the rock, searching for a place to shelter. When we got to the other side, we saw this huge half dome with the hole in the distance. It was a spectacular sight, but as often with scenes like this, it was hard to get a sense of scale in the photograph.

I asked my wife to climb up to the window and stand in it, and that made all the difference. After a couple of shots the setting sun briefly peeked between the clouds and colored the rocks near the window deep red.

I was very happy to hear that this image was awarded a Highly Commended at this year's Nature's Best International Photography Awards.

Cool. It really is a winner.

Lovely sense of scale, and the exposure is excellent.

brilliant.

Wonderful image. Well seen and taken.

Best, Chas

Congrats on the success with this one! What a great shot, love the processing, light, colour and comp. Nice touch with adding your wife for a sense of scale. That really completes this image.

Excellent.

Well done Marsel -- and congratulations!

Well deserved recognition. The human scale really does make the image.

Superb and well deserved IOW!!!!!!!

Excellent work as usual Marsel - your use of a model to add scale here makes all the difference...