Watching Whitney

[Michael13]

Mt. Whitney in California holds a special place in my heart. I have happy memories of a couple of backpacking trips from my younger days, including a trip to the summit on a perfect weather day. But for the last several years, my attempts to get the iconic sunrise photo of the east face have all been stymied by either bad weather or bad luck. I've camped out in the Alabama Hills on several occasions, alarm clock set to wake me before sunrise in anticipation of the epic event. A few times, it was totally smothered in clouds, on others it held great promise before fizzling out at the last moment. But this time, I came pretty close to the real deal. I had found a nice composition the day before, and returned before sunrise to wait. It did not disappoint!

Happy with the result, I whipped out my ND filters for a long exposure. But the alpenglow was fading fast from low clouds on the distant horizon-you can see how the needles to the south of Mt. Whitney are already losing the color. The whole show was maybe 2-3 minutes in total and then gone. Poof.

BTW, I am loving my new budget lens, the Tamron 70-300. It's really slow, but performs well between 200and 300mm.

 

[AlanLichty]

Beautiful glow on the peak in the first image. A great pair of images and at least from my perspective well worth the wait. I can say that because I didn't make several trips there for this to happen - it just showed up today

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Lovely images Michael. The glow on the peaks and the clouds - great combination.

 

[Beth]

stunning!

 

[Michael13]

Beautiful glow on the peak in the first image. A great pair of images and at least from my perspective well worth the wait. I can say that because I didn't make several trips there for this to happen - it just showed up today

Lovely images Michael. The glow on the peaks and the clouds - great combination.

stunning!

Thanks - I appreciate your comments!

 

[Trent Watts]

Both beautifully coloured sunrise image Michael. 2-3 min. doesn't give much room for error. You nailed it.

 

[BlackRockArt]

Mt. Whitney in California holds a special place in my heart. I have happy memories of a couple of backpacking trips from my younger days, including a trip to the summit on a perfect weather day. But for the last several years, my attempts to get the iconic sunrise photo of the east face have all been stymied by either bad weather or bad luck. I've camped out in the Alabama Hills on several occasions, alarm clock set to wake me before sunrise in anticipation of the epic event. A few times, it was totally smothered in clouds, on others it held great promise before fizzling out at the last moment. But this time, I came pretty close to the real deal. I had found a nice composition the day before, and returned before sunrise to wait. It did not disappoint!

View attachment 76898

Happy with the result, I whipped out my ND filters for a long exposure. But the alpenglow was fading fast from low clouds on the distant horizon-you can see how the needles to the south of Mt. Whitney are already losing the color. The whole show was maybe 2-3 minutes in total and then gone. Poof.

View attachment 76899

BTW, I am loving my new budget lens, the Tamron 70-300. It's really slow, but performs well between 200and 300mm.

Michael, beautiful shots, these photos have the Galen Rowell look, your use of ND filter is very nice.

Oliver

 

[Michael13]

Both beautifully coloured sunrise image Michael. 2-3 min. doesn't give much room for error. You nailed it.

Michael, beautiful shots, these photos have the Galen Rowell look, your use of ND filter is very nice.

Oliver

Trent and Oliver - thank you for your kind words!

 

[JimFox]

I love it when it glows like that! Great job of framing it.

And that's awesome that you made it to the summit. I did it twice about 20 years ago. The first time was with a group of friends. One of the guys was experienced on it and said that we would do it in 2 days, with stopping to camp at one of the two camp area's about halfway up. But the next morning, when we were supposed to be acclimated now and the climb to the summit was supposed to be easier, I found the level of difficulty on the 2nd day the same as the first day. So I went a year later by myself, and just started out at 3am and made it to the top and came back down. I found that was much easier then camping halfway.

I think I like #2 the best, but I also think I would crop some off the top to lose that small area of blue sky.

 

[Michael13]

I love it when it glows like that! Great job of framing it.

And that's awesome that you made it to the summit. I did it twice about 20 years ago. The first time was with a group of friends. One of the guys was experienced on it and said that we would do it in 2 days, with stopping to camp at one of the two camp area's about halfway up. But the next morning, when we were supposed to be acclimated now and the climb to the summit was supposed to be easier, I found the level of difficulty on the 2nd day the same as the first day. So I went a year later by myself, and just started out at 3am and made it to the top and came back down. I found that was much easier then camping halfway.

I think I like #2 the best, but I also think I would crop some off the top to lose that small area of blue sky.

OK, I tried cropping off the blue, but didn't like the proportions it resulted in. So I just did a content aware fill on the area - I liked that better. And as long as I was cheating, I also cloned in the better light on the needles from the first image. Here 'tis ...