One of the most impressive sights west of the Mississippi is Devil's Tower in Wyoming.  The formation seems to stand alone on the rolling prairie.  A closer examination shows the rocks have a crystalline structure, something most people don't expect on something of that immense scale.   Lastly, it's challenging to visualize that this is the remnant of an ancient volcano - and that the overlying mountain which provided for the right combination of pressures and temperatures for the rock columns to crystallize, has long sense eroded away.  Awesome!

Photographs of large objects, like Devil's Tower can be quite challenging.  Up close on the hiking trails, it's easy to see the individual rock column crystal shapes.  Also up close, the whole thing seems to tower overhead.  If you get too far away, the details which make the wonder of nature special begin to get fuzzy.  This seemed to be a good compromise position - far enough away to show the abrupt emergence from the tree tops, and yet close enough to show many of the rock columns.  I drove around to get a side lighting position and used a polarizing filter to darken the blue sky.