It’s a pleasure for Deb & I to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year for 2012.  It is such a busy part of the year that time allowed for photography is at a minimum and keeping up to date with posting images and writing blog entries is almost impossible.

The single image in this post is of the famous Mesa Arch which is located in the ‘Islands of the Sky’ region within the vast Canyonlands National Park in Utah, USA.  It is a ‘bucket list’ location for landscape photographers looking for that perfect sunrise shot and the effort required to be there was absolutely worth it.  This shot was taken on a Saturday morning in October and we left our hotel room in Moab Utah at 4:30 a.m. and thirty-eight degrees for the almost hour-long drive into  Canyonlands, where we parked at the trail-head in the dark and set out on the three-quarters of a mile hike under the moonlight to arrive at the arch in time to set up our gear and await the spectacular sunrise.

I will explain more about the experience and show many more images of the arch in upcoming posts, along with many other photographs from our recent trip through the American mid-west.

This image today is a Christmas one for a couple of reasons, the first is the sun breaking through the night sky reminds me of what it must have been like for the shepherds and wise men following the star that led them to Jesus over two thousand years ago.  A celebration we continue to enjoy today, remembering an event that changed the world like none other ever has or ever will.  Jesus is the only reason for the season.  The second thing is the sunrise reminds us that a new day is upon us and at this time of year we take pause to think about the New Year that awaits us.

So once again, Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year to you and yours.