Congratulations to ArturS for winning Feature Thread of the Week with 7 votes - View Previous Winners
I took this photo on the first weekend of July, during the overnight trip to one of my favourite places near Vancouver, the Garibaldi Park. It is a popular hiking destination, but there are still plenty of hidden spots for photographers. After about 18km of hiking I reached this viewpoint. I started to scout the area, found my camping spot and set my campsite. Initially the weather looked promising, but within one hour things started to change. Some weird haze began to cover mountains diminishing visibility. I quickly realized that it was a smoke coming from wildfires. At that moment I almost gave up on shooting that evening. But just before the sunset, the area cleared up so I ran to shoot some photos. This is one of them.
About 30 minutes after this shot the smoke covered the whole zone.
Note: This what you see on the sky these are not clouds but the smoke from wildfires. The wildfires have devastated the area of Pemberton. The worst wildfires in BC up to date. Thankfully, the worst has passed and it is getting better.
Camera & settings: Nikon D810, Nikon 14-24mm@18, ISO 250, f/11, 1/80 sec.
Simply beautiful and absorbing. I've immersed myself in this shot for a couple of minutes.
The only two minor nits are I'd reduce the sharpening/vibrance on the flowers a tad and I'd like to have had a clear view, from a slighter higher perspective (probably as little as 6" would have done it), of the snow.
I rarely comment in this sub-forum as I don't feel qualified to do so but I had to comment on this as I found this to be one heck of an amazing image. I love the dark mood, purple flower foreground and the amazing light and reflection in the lake. This image has it all. Great work.
Agree with earlier comments - this is a killer shot with great backlit foreground and mountain/lake subject. Nice placement of sun as well. We all wish for better sky but wildfire smoke did add some nice color.
Dave
Have you thought to try the Topaz sunstar software to get a more vivd sunstar here? Maybe it is not your cup of tea, but it works sometimes... Just a thought.
Many thanks to all of you for votes and comments! I always appreciate your feedback and time it takes to write it.
Below, some answers to certain comments:
Frogfish wrote:
Simply beautiful and absorbing. I've immersed myself in this shot for a couple of minutes.
The only two minor nits are I'd reduce the sharpening/vibrance on the flowers a tad and I'd like to have had a clear view, from a slighter higher perspective (probably as little as 6" would have done it), of the snow.
Thanks a lot for your feedback. I had similar thoughts about the composition, but there is nothing I could do about it. I was shooting in different spot and then I realized that the sun wouldn't align with the mountain the way I wanted. This is why I ran to this spot and took few quick shots before sun stopped highlighting the rocks and flowers.
---------------------------------------------
dbehrens wrote:
Agree with earlier comments - this is a killer shot with great backlit foreground and mountain/lake subject. Nice placement of sun as well. We all wish for better sky but wildfire smoke did add some nice color.
Dave
Thanks for the comment. The sky and conditions that I captured on this photo are completely unexpected, but I like the uniqueness of this situation.
---------------------------------------------
Mark Metternich wrote:
Wonderful image!
Have you thought to try the Topaz sunstar software to get a more vivd sunstar here? Maybe it is not your cup of tea, but it works sometimes... Just a thought.
Thanks Mark. I didn't know about that as I don't use a lot of fancy software. It is actually pretty cool as I have just checked it. I have few images where crappy natural sun star could be improved. I'll give it a try.
