The story behind this image

One of the highlights of Liz and my holiday in Sedona, Arizona was a dawn balloon ride out over the desert.

Liz was looking forward to seeing the indigenous wildlife, and I was looking forward to a new photo challenge, as I'd never photographed from the air before.

What gear to take? Well I knew I wouldn't be changing lenses in a balloon basket so I decided on my workhorse 24-105 zoom, with a polariser to enhance colours.

Of course, my beloved tripod couldn't come, so instead I leaned on a slightly increased ISO and image stabilisation to keep thing sharp.

Once in the air I found that any composition really needed a strong focal point to make an interesting image, as just pointing the lens at the ground made for a pretty boring picture.

Fortunately there were three other balloons launched along with ours, and with these catching the dawn light as the sun rose over the rolling dunes finding a strong focal point for a photo suddenly became very easy!