Zion Canyon, Zion National Park, Utah

Here in the canyon country of southwest Utah in Zion National Park, a combination of melting winter snow and summer monsoon rains over the ages has sculpted a dramatic landscape of soaring redrock walls and deep well-watered canyons. Springs gush from the base of the Navajo Sandstone layer throughout Zion to form countless oases including this one along Zion Canyon. Caught in a pool of swirling water, autumn leaves create a pinwheel effect with the aid of a 60-second time exposure. As Loren Eiseley so succinctly put it, “If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.”