"The Launch"

Comments, conversation, observations welcome! Thanks. Taken at Bowman Lake in Glacier

National Park.

Beautiful composition ,color and contrast. Best Regards

Perfect!Regards!

Mark, how are you scanning these? Kodachrome 25! I would love to get my hands on just one roll. Looks real nice. - Sean

Thanks Anthony, Aristidh and Sean for the comments. Actually this was taken over 25 years ago. Kodachrome 25 is history as far as I know. I have a commercial flatbead scanner that works well but has limitations (canoscan 9900). This is a 3 pass scan: one for the foreground area, the second for the water and sky to the left and then the third for the right side. The files are 16bit at 200megs each so three files combined would be close to 600megs. They are then blended carefully in Photoshop. A straight scan would not even make a usable file. This looks exactly like the slide, yet required 3 hours work to produce. Thats why I don't go to bed before 2 am.

It doesn't get any better than this. You know in 1982 I was still probably living in western Montana (Missoula) and working for the Forest Service. It is amazing, but I have stood right there. I, for one, appreciate the effort you've put into making this image available to all of us. Excellent work, my friend! Cheers! Chris

Thanks Chris. Looks like we have crossed paths enough times. I'm the tall skinny guy with the big nose, fast rising hairline and the Pentax on a Tripod in case we cross over again. I hope we can! This at one time was my flagship photo. Problem was, I could never get a quality print because of the wide range of light. Too contrasty they always told me. Even with todays technology, old film images can be quite stubborn. I was quite delighted to make this one work finally for old time sake. I love this place, especially Bowman and Kintla Lakes.

Mark... Thanks for sharing this wonderful image. While the photo in itself is beautiful and an excellent technical capture; I've enjoyed the discourse and comments as well. The quality and volume of excellent images on PN is spoiling in some respect, because I find myself scrolling through and grabbing only the most favorite subjects to view, and then I slow down on an image like this and find that the story contained in the photo is just the tip of the iceberg; there's the photographer's story there also; the effort to get up early (dang that's a warm sleeping bag), and the years of memories from this and many other trips. That, to me, is more important than the technically perfect image and the juiced up PS efforts so common here on PN. Thanks for sharing, the image and the stories. It makes an already beautiful image... special. Mike

"I am quite certain, however, that they are deeply rewarding to my soul. And after all, someday that is all that will be left of me" This one of these photos.

Poertry of nature ,combined with human signs.And a photographer ( skilled)