Pic of the Day

Storm over Pyramid Mountains, New Mexico: Thirty miles east of the Arizona, New Mexico border on Interstate 10 lay the Pyramid Mountains, the spine of the continental divide in southern New Mexico. The highest point of the Pyramids is Pyramid Peak which stands at 6,008 feet. The range itself is thirty-eight miles long and stretches from Hildalgo to the south and Lordsburg to the north. Sky islands like the Pyramid Mountains are isolated by a sea of desert and are home to a number of species that are common further south in the Sierra Madre Occidentals of Mexico.
As I crossed into New Mexico from Arizona a storm was forming to the southeast. I pulled my van off the side of the interstate and set-up my camera with a wide-angle lens. The dichotomy of blue sky in the direction the storm was moving and the dark ominous sky of the forming storm set against the golden grasses on the desert created an amazing display of color.
I shot a series of four side by side overlapping photographs to be patched together. After returning home I imported the four images into photoshop, overlapped the images, adjusted color so that each image matched, adjusted contrast, and erased various parts of overlapping images to form proper perspective. The combination of the four images creates a photograph that spans approximately 150 degrees from left to right.
The merged images form a grand panorama of a forming storm over the Pyramid Mountains. The image shows falling rain, cast shadows, blue sky , the impending storm, and a small portion of a rainbow in the lover right corner.
This was a most enjoyable image to shoot, but a bear of an image to create!

Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-85mm Zoom, Digital Zoom, ISO 100

Note: Clicking on the image will open a slightly larger image for closer inspection.