This is a shot of the Race Track—a dried lake bed in Death Valley—taken just as the sun was coming up. The rising sun provides a harsh side light that gives the baked mud “tiles” definition.

At first glance the viewer has no idea about scale: Is this an extreme close-up or an aerial shot of a landscape? The shadows, apparently of shrubs, on the left of the image form a boundary—and give a hint of the intermediate scale of the view that I captured.