Staying right at the lodge inside Bryce Canyon National Park gave us the rare luxury of being steps away from sunrise. For two mornings, we rose in the cold and dark, walking out to the rim as the first light spilled into the amphitheatre. The canyon is overwhelming in scale—an ocean of stone stretching in every direction—yet in photographs, that vastness can easily flatten into something less impactful.

This image is a cropped version of a full panorama I shot from the rim. By narrowing the frame, the hoodoos come forward with greater clarity and rhythm. Their fiery reds and oranges catch the morning light like a cathedral choir, each one distinct yet part of a larger harmony.

For me, this version feels truer to the experience of being there. When you stand on the rim, your eyes can’t possibly take in everything at once. You focus instead on patterns, on light falling across ridges, on the way shadows carve depth into the formations. This photograph is an attempt to echo that lived moment: intimate, textured, and full of the canyon’s layered history.