Early this year, I spent one night at Zion when traveling out west for a Las Vegas concert. It was a full moon, and I knew the moon would be behind me and light up the valley. I like these “moonscape” shots that show off the national parks at night. I’ve done similar shots at Yosemite and Grand Teton. Even though the forecast called for clouds to move in, I decided to try star trails. I spent about an hour and half shooting the star trails, but I only used about 45 minutes in this photo. After that, the clouds became too dense.

I had visited Canyon Overlook on an earlier Zion family vacation trip. I always knew I wanted to come back and try a blue hour or night shot. It was great to finally get back and see it at night.

Tech details: All frames used were taken from the same spot. The foreground (except for the car light trails) is a single image. The car light trails are an assortment of individual frames that I picked out where a single car was going in the same direction. Since it was late, there were very few cars on the road. Each time, it was a single car. I think this is a combination of two or three cars.

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Make:	NIKON CORPORATION
Model:	NIKON Z 8
Exposure:	25
Aperture:	f/5.6
ISO Speed:	500
Focal Length:	18 mm
Lens:	14-24mm f/2.8G