I've had this photo in my mind for a long time, but have never been in the right spot at the right time to get it. In September when heading home from Zion, I pulled off at the Hanging Lake parking lot to take a rest. The time of day was right, and as I looked up the ramp, west-bound on I-70, I saw there was just enough shoulder to set up the tripod without getting hit by a car, so I did.

Out of several attempts, this shot was the one I liked the best. A large tanker truck with a light tank emerged from the tunnel creating the nice, light blue streak, capped with the reds, purples and yellows of his running lights. I shot a custom white balance on this, then tweaked in Capture NX (RAW). I wanted the canyon walls to still have some brownish purple in them (because they were), but wanted the overall temperature of the scene to be cool evening colors-because they were.

Every time a truck came out of the tunnel, because I was actually on an elevated portion of the roadway, the camera and tripod would pulse up and down with the rumbling of the truck. Luckily the camera and tripod moved up and down along with the bridge and the truck, so its up and down blur due to camera shake was eliminated.

I shot this image at 90mm, f/18 at 2.5 seconds, manual exposure, ISO 200, Nikkor 70-200mm VR/f2.8 lens.