"'Sunrise Over the Vast Canadian Rockies' (Best Viewed 'Large')"

This is a mid-winter, early morning aerial view of the Canadian Rockies approaching

the US Pacific Northwest, taken from so high that even after correction for lens

distortion, curvature of the earth is visible on the (NW) horizon. View: Northwest by

west. Your ratings, critiques and observations are invited and most welcome. If you

rate harshly, very critically, or wish to make a remark, please submit a helpful and

constructive comment; please share your photographic knowledge to help improve my

photography. Thanks! Enjoy! john

John, This is a most effective aerial shot - I assume its taken from a plane. You did a nice job with the black and white conversion.  Larry

Yes, this is taken from a plane through an ordinary passenger window after it burned off all its fuel from Europe and was heading into the Pacific Northwest for a landing, so it had climbed to maximum available altitude, 39,000 feet as I recall, and the vista was stunning.

This vista went on for a very long time, and was visible on both sides of the plane -- just mountains and mountains and mountains; I was overwhelmed, even though I have flown over this range maybe 100 to 150 times.

This was taken early morning, start of January in what must have been a spectacularly cold night, making the air very clear.  

There was still haze, but I used 'dehaze' filter in Adobe Photoshop 15.5 'raw' plugin to minimize the haze and clear out the view, so you don't see distracting water vapor, although you can see fog in valleys below instead of ground, and that fog goes into banks into the far distance, which means though I don't think we were anywhere near the Pacific, but if we had been, you couldn't have seen it for low clouds and fog.  

However, the angle of attack to the US suggests were were north of Idaho or perhaps Eastern Washington, but who really knows?  There was an on-board navigation system which could have pinpointed our position, but I was too overwhelmed and bleary-eyed otherwise to think of the practicality of turning it on and taking a photo of it, thinking this group of photos (this is one of several) would not have much merit.

Boy was I wrong.

Thanks for the compliment on the B&W conversion; I pride myself on getting that right. Even though the b/w conversion software said to make it brighter, I felt that this brightness level was 'just right' as the baby bear would say.

Best to you and thanks.

john

John (Crosley)

There are really very few places on earth where from nearly 40,000 feet you can see such rugged earth texture for such a far distance.

Two are where continents are ramming into each other.  One is where Africa is shoving Italy into the rest of Europe creating the alps.

The alps are spectacularly high, but having flown over them numerous times do not seem that they go on forever when viewed from great height.

Another such place is where the Indian subcontinent is being driven to Asia to create the Himalayas, and I'll have to defer personal comment about that; not having viewed it from great altitude.  

Mt. Everest is so high it may almost make a plane at great altitude seem that it's barely airborne, but I am unaware of how far the ruggedness around it goes in hundreds of miles, even though I am aware of the great it creates.

Another place that is similar to this is the American mid-continent -- Colorado-Arizona or even parts of Wyoming, with a break in between the two where they've built an Interstate that's not too steep. (I-80 and continuation of I-84, the former I-80N).

This view may seem somewhat familiar in mid-winter to Coloradans used to flying into Denver looking North especially before the descent down the 'front range' of the Rockies to the edge of the Great Plains.

Although I've flown over the Andes, it's only been at night, so I'll withhold comment on that too.

That's enough geography for today.

;~))

Who knew I was an aerial photographer?  (I have some other aerial shots posted too.)

john

John (Crosley)