It's funny to me how critical we can be of ourselves at times. How one little experience that leads to a bad day can, at least for me, ruin an otherwise fruitful memory. I shot this not last spring, but the spring prior! This is the first time I'm sharing it. At the time for whatever reason, I was already in poor spirits and the little time I did have to get out and shoot that day was wrought with annoyances. I Lost a lens cap, fell over with my camera and tripod ( I'm pretty stout on my feet especially when carrying equipment, so that was a biggie!), got whacked with starthistles in my shins while walking to this spot, and then to top it off after I finally arrive, seeing an absolute smorgasbord of epic light, set up, and shoot one frame................................battery dead. 😫 fumbling to my camera bag I grabbed one and changed only to look over and......light gone. That butte in the middle in complete shadow with the lit-up wildflower covered hill in front of it was engulfed with overhead clouds and the contrast was gone. GONE. I stuck around for a while feeling utterly defeated and I was only taunted by continuous grey skies and a dull foreground. Even after stewing for a couple of days, I reviewed the only image I managed to get off the shutter and, to my further dismay.........underexposed midground and out of focus foreground. Well, If I hadn't exposed for the sky first this shot would have never been savable as I would have lost the highlights in the sky. I normally would have shot a second frame exposing for the midground but...I never got to. The dynamic range was just far too much I thought for one shot. So once again feeling defeated I let this one sit without even attempting a go at it. All this time, and because of a few fine folks' kind words and inspiration recently I decided to take a fresh look at old work and boy am I glad I did! The shadows recovered much better than I thought would in post processing, and the out of focus foreground was just my head playing tricks on me, it's not what I originally wanted but while it is out of focus the midground and back is completely sharp. I love shooting out of focus foregrounds on occasion, but just let a bad day make things worse and this photograph was almost never a reality. I was so humbled to be able to witness this, sad I couldn't slow down and appreciate it more at the time. Life lessons Y'all. It's one of my best shots of the year so far and one I'm proud to be sharing now, even though technically it's from..... another year...lol. Moments are fleeting in life people, enjoy them.
" Layers Of Light, "
The Impending Seasons
Nikon D750
ISO 100
1/500th Sec
180mm @ f/16
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