Seeing as it's a cold December day, thought I'd go back and find the *warmest* possible picture in my archive. I think the "House on Fire" Puebloan ruin is probably as warm as it gets, both in tone and subject (at least in my portfolio). This was taken earlier this year on a visit to Utah with
Kevin Benedict. We started out at Factory Butte and made a short detour through this portion of Cedar Mesa in Bear's Ears National Monument on the way to Moab. There are only so many variations on composition here, it's pretty straightforward and not terribly difficult to shoot as long as one gets the right time of day and conditions, needs to be noon to mid-afternoonish with enough sunlight to get the light reflecting off the warm sandstone on to the overhang to "light the fire". I found this one to most pleasingly capture the fire effect. I have used some light/shadow/contrast adjustments along with slightly adjusting the yellow/orange tones (not that much) to really bring the heat to this image, if you'll pardon my non-stop puns.
Although it's a bit of a drive and the trailhead is not super easy to find, the hike out to this ruin is very pleasant and the ruin itself gave me shivers. This site will forever remain burned in to my memory. Ok, I promise I'm done. Shot with Pentax K-1 using "Pixel Shift" (this was an ideal subject for that feature, and adds to the color vibrancy) and Pentax 15-30mm (a rebranded Tamron 15-30).
