I had been in Montana for the last few weeks, with some "interesting" weather for summer - lots of rain and thunderstorms. I spent Friday night at the St Mary Campground, figuring it would be a good way to spend my last night in the area before heading back to California. Friday night's weather included plenty of rain, but the forecast showed clearing through the day on Saturday. My hope was to get some interesting light at sunrise and since the campground is just 10 minutes from the Wild Goose Island viewpoint, that would be my target. It was still windy with plenty of clouds in the morning, so I decided to hike down to the lakeshore to use the rocks as a foreground and maybe show some of the moving water.
The light was dull as I waited for sunrise and I spent the time trying different compositions. A little before sunrise I started to see a faint red glow on some of the peaks and a hint of color in the clouds. I shouted "come on, let's do it!" only to see the color fade. I figured I'd wait and see what happened, since I only needed the clouds in front of the sun to clear a little bit in order to get some light. A bald eagle flew over my head and across the lake to my left. As I was watching it fly, I realized that the light was hitting the mountain (I think it is Red Eagle Peak) and the clouds above it had gotten colorful. I moved my tripod and swung my camera to the left to capture the scene - which is the first image. I then took a look around and saw that in those few seconds the light had broken through on the mountains around the lake and the clouds were picking up the color as well. I felt like the foreground I'd chosen led into the scene pretty well and I chose a shutter speed that showed the motion of the water without blurring all of the details.
Any thoughts are welcome.
Where the eagle led my eye
DC-S1RM2LUMIX S 16-35/F4 lens16mmf/11.01/4s125 ISO0.0 EV
Stormy Saint Mary Lake at Sunrise
DC-S1RM2LUMIX S 16-35/F4 lens16mmf/11.01/3s100 ISO0.0 EV
gdanmitchell wrote:
Nice. A lot of the time with lake photos we hope for still water — you know, reflections! — but I like the effect of the rough water here.
Thank you - I've been hunting reflections at this spot for a while and this time decided to just go with the motion.
Thanks for the back-story. Good on you getting up and out there in less than perfect conditions, then being ready to take advantage of the light when it happened. #2 for me.
Two excellent shots. I think the choice of shutter speed really enhances the look of the water in these photos. Is that something you experimented with before the final capture?
Dan Cross wrote:
Two excellent shots. I think the choice of shutter speed really enhances the look of the water in these photos. Is that something you experimented with before the final capture?
I was definitely playing with shutter speeds while the light was getting brighter. The really nice light only lasted for a few minutes, so at that point I had to go with my best guess.
Kyle, you adapted extremely well and walked away with some very nice images. I think anchoring the image with the rock in the foreground really works well.
