Glacier National Park, Montana is often called "the Crown of the Continent" for good reason! If you have never been there, make plans to go!
Here are four shots. Three are experiments from this last summer as I had the awesome privilege to co-lead a Hasselblad workshop with about 15 participants. The other (the fall color image w storm cloud) was shot some years back (dove deep into the archives today). This evening the storm blanketed the area with about a foot of snow and my wife and I barely got out the next morning as winter had arrived and season was ending.
Image #1 is 60 seconds through one of the most blazing sunrises I have ever seen. The moon was as you see here, but knowing it would blur too much for a print at 60 seconds (and it did just a bit) I took another frame immediately after the shot at a higher ISO and more open f/stop to composite exactly over the top of the original. Canon 5D Mark2
I think that I like the last one best, though I often am taken by long exposure clouds. (No surprise, in that I also do night photography.) The warm/cool color contrast is effective, too. Too bad you couldn't have gotten a slightly vantage point for the last one though and somehow managed to keep the tree tops for intersecting with the far shore forest - but sometimes such things can't be helped. :-)
These are all amazing, but man the 4th one just jumps out. The 1Ds files have a whole different (read: special) feel to them!
The lighting in the second one (on the island of trees) is really special, and of course the first one is spectacular. I like the third one, but not as much as the others
D. von Briesen wrote:
as per usual, these are all gorgeous mark. your long exposure clouds are becoming somewhat of a metternich signature and these are among your finest.
but i'm really impressed by the composition in #4, the story told, and what seems to be a road less traveled by you. greatly appreciated.
Thanks Derek.
About #4. Someone on the forum just asked me about the story so I will elaborate a bit here:
My wife and I spent about 3 weeks in the park at the end of the season (late sept) and it was awesome! Few people and tumultuous weather! On this shoot I was heading from Many Glacier to the St. Mary's Lake area and before entering the East end of the park I spotted this powerful storm coming in. I was pretty sure the direction of its movement would allow me to chase it into the park and if I was lucky enough I might be able to connect it to some other cohesive compositional landscape elements. With no one on the road but myself on this day (going to the sun road closed at the divide) I jammed through the park with one eye on the road and the other on the storm. Then as I approached this scene here (which is a somewhat common little spot to pull over) I saw that these elements might work. Frantically, yet trying to remain calm to reduce mistakes, I jumped out and pulled off a number of shots (and different compositions) working the scene. There is a bisecting of lines I wish now I would have avoided (the tree with the back waterline) and could have by jumping up on my truck and shooting from a higher position (mainly the cab) but I was too hurried to think to do that. After a handful of shots the cloud moved on. I did follow it further but no other compelling composition drew me to shoot. After sunset my wife and I stayed at the big campground (in our truck and Lance camper) near the east gate of the park and no one else was there (I think they knew to get out). There is a big risk of getting snowed in at this time of the year. When the winter arrives here sometimes it arrives in a fury! Well, this storm I chased ended up dumping a foot of snow in the night. My truck at the time was not 4WD, and long story short we woke up nearly stuck in the park and while it continued to dump snow all day we barely got out in time to head for Banff.
Beautiful set Mark! My favorite is #1 and I really like #4 too, but that one is playing a trick on my eyes. It looks like two images, one stacked on top of the other at the water line on the far shore. I'm one of those unlucky ones that haven't made it to GNP yet. Soon...
Well, I'm going to go COMPLETELY against the grain and go with #2. The light on the island is amazing and the comp is spot on. The sense of scale really comes through.
