'Mt. Rainier Sunset (Washington State)'

At 14411 ft (4392 m), Mr. Rainier in Washington State is the highest

mountain in the Cascade Range of mountains which stretches from

California to British Columbia (Southern Canada). Clouds hang over

surrounding 'foothills' -- which would be major mountains in their own

right in most countries, all of which surround this giant volcanic, year-

round snow-covered giant. Your ratings, critiques and remarks are

invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly or very critically, or just

wish to make an observation, please submit a helpful and constructive

comment; please share your photographic knowledge to help improve

my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

Thank you for the kind expression; I seldom post landscapes so people may not think they are what I can do or do well; I try to do well that I try photographically, just so long as it interests me, and this did.

john

John (Crosley)

I like the very low position of the sun casting shadows that reveal the texture in the landscape and the warm hue it adds to this cold environment.

The pilot must be your friend! Excellent point of view and great light. Congratulation for this unusual photo of Mt. Rainier.  Karl

Yes, I love 'modeling' of terrain, which is how I came to take this photo.

I'm glad it communicates.

Oh, it was a commercial flight - only saw the pilot on the ground when before he locked the cockpit door.

Thanks for the comment.

john

John (Crosley)

Seattle and South Puget Sound Realtors so often advertise 'views of Mt. Rainer'.

It's usually a scam unless the view is said to be in June or July, the two months when the mountain can reliably be seen from the neighborhoods, because of so many low to mid-level clouds.

(Sound view is more reliable, though fog obscures it often too).

I found this an unusual view, too, so when I was in the front seat with a newly-purchased (but much older) dslr at the seat beside me, I just picked it up, framed and fired at ISO 100.  This is at a very low shutter speed, also (1/13th of a second, by memory, but the 'ride' was very smooth and our forward progress relatively unnoticeable though we were going nearly 550 miles per hour.

Thanks for the comment.

john

John (Crosley)

Thank you Svetlana.

I see this from time to time, but never before with a camera AND a clear view.  And this time the lighting and sun angle were magnificent. 

How lucky can a guy get? 

But of course, I had my camera right there, all prepared, (as always).

Thanks for the comment.

john

John (Crosley)

Beautiful capture John.

Thank you Dominick.

I try always to 'be prepared' and I quit scouting before Boy Scouts.  It has paid off innumerable times, like here.  For me a 'trip to the store' is a 'photo trip' -- I don't require a special time just for taking photos -- it's all the time, and those who know me expect that. 

john

John (Crosley)

This plane's passenger windows were not all scratched from flying through polluted air above grungy cities with the dirt abrading the windows, then after years, with dirt, salt, deicer, etc., accumulated on the windows, the scrubbing process has in the past left many airplane windows a mass of scratches which dramatically cuts contrast making taking anything but snapshots through them futile

Maybe they've figured out a new way to wash airplane windows (and airplanes) such as the 'brushless' methods now used by car washes, because this trip is the first time in years I've even tried to take a photo through an airplane window and for the first time I succeeded; (of course I usually take an aisle seat).

Photo taken as a 'raw' capture with appropriate adjustments for contrast, etc., in Adobe Raw Converter, for any residual 'light scattering' from window scratches which cuts contrast considerably.

This is one clear advantage of shooting 'raw' -- this same photo in JPEG is not nearly so sharp or contrasty because of haziness from light scattering through the double paned plastic airplane window(s) -- (cabin lights were off which was helpful).

john

John (Crosley)

Excelent light and composition, great job... ;)

This is hard to improve. Fantastic!

Thank you.

I've been looking at this mountain for decades, off and on.

For once, this mountain finally chose to reveal herself to me.

john

John (Crosley)

Andrew,

I'm not known for landscapes.

It's not because I can't do them; I can.

I just mostly lack the patience, the willingness to trek into the wilderness, sleep like a mummy in a sleeping bag, awake before dawn to await the first light while my hands are so frozen they cannot manipulate the camera controls.  I also like the fast pace, the infinite variety, and the ability to 'nail' something no one else ever has seen or perhaps recognized that one finds in 'street' (and even in moving bird photography) -- all of which may disappear in the fraction of a second, and therefore requires of the photographer enormous skill and reflexes.

The landscaper usually has a little more time to study and make decisions, sometimes hours -- though not always if the light's changing rapidly.

This is an exception - a photo that HAD to be taken. 

And soon the flight attendant offered me a drink (declined except for OJ).

I'm glad this pleased you.

john

John (Crosley)

A followup on the perils of landscaping:

I'm fantastically allergic to mosquitoes.

A mosquito bite may awaken me three weeks after the bite with the urge to scratch my leg (arm, etc.) right to the bone, even if previously I had not been bothered too much by it (but I know it's not from a new bite -- I'll be in a place where there's no mosquitoes, jiggers, spiders, etc.).

And I really DO love to take landscapes.  When I first took up photography in my '20s I had hopes of becoming a famous landscaper along with hopes of being a great 'street' photographer (no one used the term 'street' then that I had heard of, but you know what I mean.) 

Now I'm a little older (four decades?) and gave up photography mostly for decades and am back.

So are the mosquitoes, and same with my astonishing allergy to their bites when I go in to the fields from dusk to dawn.

Damn little bugs, anyway.

john

John (Crosley)

John,

This is one of the most beautiful images I have ever seen and clearly to most  awesome landscape. One of thous pictures that will look fantastic in National Geographic. Some may say luck in taking the picture, but luck rarely rewards people without talent.

"A moment in time perfectly captured"

As a youth in my late grade school years my mother was hospitalized for surgery and a very long recuperation, and I went to live in the most primitive conditions with my very old grandmother and her widowed sister, my great aunt.

They did not have running water, or believe much in modern medicine or even nutrition.

Whatever they cooked, that is what you ate that day.  If they cooked oatmeal, which took hours to cook (no Quaker Oats quickies, this was the real stuff and tasted terrific) you might have it several meals in one day.

They called it 'mush' having both been born in the 1880s or so.

A great day was the day they baked three lemon pies from scratch.  It actually happened several times, often on Sunday.  Sunday was a great day, also they actually DROVE to church, and there was a pretty girl at church -- the only kids I saw for almost two months.

I can still taste the lemon and the meringue from those pies and the zestiness from the 'mush'.

All was somewhere near this magic mountain, but out of its sight (sound view -- my grandmother had her primitive house on 28 acres of prime Puget Sound waterfront frontage, which they sold for $28,000 to a developer who put a house on every acre, made a million of so on their stupidity, and they used the proceeds to build an even more primitive house farther away and of NO value but also on water with waterfront.

Why tell you this?

Well during the six or eight weeks confined with these two elderly dears as a youth with no friends, or anything, they had several decades of National Geographics in boxes.  This was in the '50s, so you can imagine the age of those magazines in those boxes.

One by one at night when they had some sort of lighting (I think it may have been lantern) I browsed those decades of National Geographic, taking it all in. 

I fell in love with the magazine.  I learned all I could and I was not stupid then -- I was hungry for knowledge.

I got a great education in geography and world diversity.

Apparently I got a great education also in photography, however unknowingly.

Later, when I worked for Associated Press in New York as a photo editor, one or two of the photographers had worked for National Geographic after Nat'l Geographic fired all their photo staff and went 'contract' and 'assignment' through various agencies.

How I lusted after the work they had done -- imagine being sent to Africa or Madagascar or Somalia (before)or Burma to take nothing but photos all day long and the magazine had almost nothing but GREAT photos.  Decades of great photos documenting the world.

Your comment about this photo's being 'National Geographic' perfect touched a chord with me, so you can see why the long introduction. 

It touched a very early, never realized, never even mentioned early ambition of mine.

I'd still do it if I could.

Fact:  National Geographic (on television) advertises that for their magazine there are 1 million photos taken and only 1,000 of them are ever printed in the magazine each year (plus or minus a few).

Imagine me sitting in an airplane seat, with a much older but  newly purchased by mail, and new looking and very serviceable 'like new camera' next to me, less than 1,000 clicks on the shutter) except for a frame or two I'd taken at the airport, a six year or so year old design, and detractors saying 'why buy such a camera, it's not worth it compared to even the poorest of the new?

And me in forums saying 'at base ISO, they're as good as anything made at present (base is ISO 100 on this D200 and this was shot at ISO 100.)

Then looking out the window,  picking up this never unfamiliar camera, pointing it out the airplane window with a new wide angle zoom, also never used by me, and taking this photo.

You sir, sir, have made my day!  

Perhaps my month!

And this day (Saturday) started out so world class horribly I thought it was beyond rescue. Really, worst in months -- possibly a year.

Then I read your comment; and it's salve for my wounded soul.

Thank you so very much. 

john

John (Crosley)

John,

Thank you very much for the wonderful story. Now I can see the picture and read a story behind it, like in real National Geographic.

Al the best.

Andrew

After parts five decades of interest in photography, including a career with a camera including some time with AP in my early-mid 20s (and also as writer, editor, world service editor for them) I have tips and tricks to share.

I don't want to waste them by keeping them secret; I'm not 20 any more.

AP hired me as a photographer partly because I could write captions well, then converted me to writer after I gave up the photographer job right after meeting Cartier-Bresson and feeling my work 'fell short' of his.  I hadn't a clue who he was though I was sent to meet him because my work reminded his old colleague of Cartier-Bresson's work.

I quit photos and turned to writing, and AP immediately turned me into a comfortable, fast, and easy writer.

I can explain things, and I try to do that for Photo.net members, especially those new to 'street' which can be a most challenging area of photography, and which is extremely hard to learn, in part because it becomes blocked by so many feelings of insecurity  stemming from its generally 'non-permissive' nature.

I've experienced all of those feelings, and can assure members they're not alone, then help guide them through the transition from guilt-ridden and scared, to comfortable with their own skin doing 'street' if they'll read what I've written, I think and take it to heart.

And if they have the personality for it and interest in it.

Which I think is essential.

Thanks Andrew, once again today.

Every writer needs a reader.

Every photographer needs a viewer.

You have been outstanding in both regards.

john

John (Crosley)

An amazing shot, John.  Lucky you to be able to get a clean shot like this.  The lighting really brings out the textures of the mountains, and the main subject is places well in the frame. Thanks for sharing this one.

Paul

You have said it very well.

Interestingly this is  a 'raw' version with contrast enhanced due to some light scattering from the airplane windows.  Also it was darkened somewhat.

The JPEG version basically was unpresentable.

But this is the basic photo, no real 'enhancement' through Photoshop, just different choices on contast and brightnes in processing from 'raw' than the camera's 'brains'. 

I guess it's a great argument for saying that despite its 'database of 30,000 or 35,000 photos in its algorythm' Nikon ain't got everything down perfectly.

Artist's choice or just common sense sometimes with even an uneducated eyeball can sometimes outprocess those algorythms composed of tens of thousands of photos!

Thanks so much for your feedback.  It's really helpful, especially since I post so few landscapes.

john

John (Crosley)

I added some 'contrast' enhancement as well, since the 'modeling' of the mountain's and terrain's features by the setting sun was the point of the whole photograph, along with the delicate lighting.

Interestingly, I have three different monitors, two Samsungs, where I am and a laptop.   The cheap laptop shows this the worse, but it's poor on reds on all photos, so I discount that. 

But the older Samsung does not present this half as well as a late model 'auto calibrated' 24-inch Samsung, which brings out wonderful colors with delicate gradations, and under which this photo does approach, as some seem to say, a 'work of art'.

On others, it falls short.

I find litle difference between the two Samsungs on other photos. Interestingly, both are auto califbrated -- one a 22-inch and the other a 24-inch and both thin film (the cheapest to make).

But the bigger one is newer.

I keep another large Samsung at home in the USA and cannot wait to see this on that one.  It's been an interesting comparison. 

I think this photo would make a good one for 'color comparison' when comparative shopping for monitors or just evaluating monitors. 

Anyone with technical expertise in that field care to contribute on that point?

(On this largest monitor one you can clearly see the delicate 'green' in the East horizon, the 'green' described by surfers as a 'green flash' as the sun goes down, and almost always described by them as lasting less than a second.  But then they're looking at the setting sun and its diffraction through the earth's atmosphere in an entirely different direction--directly into the sun.)

john

John (Crosley)

It is a strange photo in a way. The colors are somewhat unreal, the mountain seems as if artificially sculptured from plasticine. All seems as if it is a model. A weird image that makes its charm.