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Are we there yet?
I didn't actually say it, but I was thinking it, as Liz and I hiked up the Glacier Gorge trail in the Rocky Mountain National Park, with Mills Lake as our intended destination.
It was a rare cloudy day in late September, which was welcome as the sun can get very intense at an altitude of 9,000+ feet when you're gasping for air carrying a full DSLR camera kit with you.
Mind you, we passed by some lovely scenery on our way up to the lake, so we had plenty of rest breaks while I stopped to take the usual plethora of photographs.
Arriving at Mills Lake itself we were greeted by some stunning views of the high peaks to the west, and sub-alpine forest to the east, reflecting beautifully in the still waters.
An hour's break for a rest and picnic allowed me to explore some of the available views, and in the end I settled on this one.
What attracted me to this particular composition was the fact that the elements in the scene are almost all triangles (see how many you can spot), which lend a power and dynamism to the image.
I especially liked the way the two dead tree trunks act like an arrow head, pointing to the peaks beyond.
I also used a polarising filter to remove some of the glare from the surface of the water, allowing a lot more of the sub-surface foreground detail to be seen.
With such a contrast difference between the bright sky and land under cloud shadow I needed to take five separate exposures, each one stop apart, to capture the entire dynamic range present in the scene.
Normally I would have used a strong neutral density graduated filter to darken the sky, but this wasn't possible here as the filter would have darkened the mountains as well.
Back home I merged the five exposures and constructed this final version of the scene using Adobe Lightroom CC, and it's turned out pretty close to how I remember seeing it.
Well worth the effort to get there - mind you - we didn't go any higher up the trail to visit the other lakes. That was enough for one hike!
Filename - rocky mountains mills lake 01
Camera - Canon EOS 6D
Lens - 17-40mm zoom @ 19mm
Exposure - Various @ f16, ISO100
Location - Mills Lake, Rocky Mountains
This image - 800x533px JPEG
Conversion - Adobe Lightroom
Comments - HDR rendition using five separate exposures
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