Mistaya Chill

This is Mount Cephren reflecting in Mistaya lake at first light in late June.

 

Despite the fact that it would rise to 30 degrees Celcius at midday, it was almost freezing at dawn with a strong wind. I was initially disappointed in the wind as I had hoped to shoot a long panorama of the lake with the mountains reflecting in it. But, as I worked with some longer exposures, I really loved how the light on the peak blurred and became like smudged pastels in the images.

 

 

All comments welcome. Thanks for viewing.

very good, congrats.

very good shot..nice composition..nice colours congrat

Excelente, me gusta mucho. Saludos

Thank you all.

when I first saw, I thought it was the sun reflecting in the water. beautiful.

Thanks Zsolt. I really like your observation -- it does look like the sun.

Awesome! Super job Ian.

Thank Joseph.

This is another one that captures my imagination and seems to be a case of the technique and the personal merging. The highest impact aspect of this photo, for me, is the double reflection. Feels to me much like an echo from mountaintop to foreground reflection to background glimmer of reflection. It does, as mentioned, have the feel of sunlight, although not as streaked as sunlight would often be. That character of the solidity of the reflection, also the way it seems to flatten itself onto the surface of the water, reminds me of how I felt viewing your Peyto Lake photo. There is a certain density you seem to be arriving at in some elements of your photos that is, for lack of a better word, hypernatural. In other words, they don't feel unnatural to me, but they feel more like a vision of what's natural than a representation of what's natural. Vision is always the thing I most look for in a photo. Capturing the beauty or whatever you want to call it of a landscape is one thing. Visually describing it is another. That seems to me what you are doing here.

 

Then there is the strong somewhat diagonal movement downward from main summit to secondary one, with the rhythmic play of the snow-dusted crevices in the mountainside accompanying that movement. Movement is something else occupying a lot of my attention lately, and not just with blur, but with leading lines, compositional acumen, light stories. For a still and grand landscape like this to suggest movement, and not necessarily in the ripples of the water but in the actual solidity of the mountain itself, gives it an emotional component going beyond "beautiful scene." It suggests your own eye movement and puts me in touch with the "humanness" that is adding to what is otherwise only objectified beauty. The is beauty internalized.

Do you feel it at all tightly framed on the right? I'm feeling a wee bit pinched. But there's also a certain amount of tension between the frame and that lower apex that may provide a bit of interesting energy. Thoughts?

Fred thank you for your in depth commentary.

 

I had been impressed by the true pyramidal shape of Mount Cephren here and by the seeming permanence and stability of the form. I tried a number of compositions to capture and contrast this quality. I had been trying for a surface reflection and had been extending the exposures with ND filters when the wind picked up.

 

I don't find the right side too tight. I find it just on the very verge of being too tight. I think that this has just the right amount of tension from the close crop. But, it is too tight to ever mat this as a print for framing.

 

Luckily, I had also been shooting overlapping frames of the entire west side of the lake to stitch into a panorama. Consequently, I had been paying less attention to the frame edges on the left and right and was only interested in the top and bottom edges and keeping the horizontal true. I figured even if I used the frames individually I could always stitch two or more together and then re-crop. So, if I plan a print, I will have to stitch and re-work the stitched image. At that point, I might bring back a smidgen more of that right hand peak.

 

I have another composition of this mountain that I will probably post shortly. I prefer this one, but I am getting mixed feedback from the family/friends.