Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Lose

A wise man once told me that in life you'll win some and you'll lose some. Its accurate.

It looked like I was going to win big one afternoon this week. The conditions were right for a landscape of the Coeur d' Alene/Hayden area that I've been thinking of for awhile. I was looking for a layer of clouds that was dense but had space enough between each cloud that some light was coming through. All in all I was looking for an image with a lot of contrast thats focus was as much on the clouds as it was on the landscape.

Usually these type of clouds don't last too long, if they're starting to break like this they usually end up clearing out or coming back together. I hustled up Canfield as quick as I could and on the last push to the top I was greeted by a few inches of snow. At this point I realized running shoes and shorts weren't a good choice. I was beat, frustrated at running with a backpack, and starting to get cold. I realized I couldn't turn around after coming so far so I ended up trudging through the snow.

At the top I looked around and the clouds were right. For what I wanted in the image I had to do some work with my nd grad filter to get definition in the clouds and the landscape. This isn't a quick process, you can't just put it on and shoot. The exposure on the top and bottom half of the frame is different and you have to line up the horizon line of the filter with the scene in front of you (not difficult if your shooting in the plains but a little tricky if you have mountains on the horizon).

Long story short, I busted off some quick test shots, got everything dialed as quick as I could and by the time I was almost set the clouds closed up and the light went to crap. Like the man said, you win some you lose some, looks like I'm gonna be running up Canfield the next time the clouds are right, I'll know to be more prepared next time.

Here's a few test shots while I was getting my filter situation dialed:

Brooks was in the frame, I didn't care because I was just getting set up... my mistake

I was a little bummed but I got some good exercise and was hanging out with my dog on top of a mountain, not too bad. I found a dry spot and waited for a little while to see if the clouds would open back up, while I waited I decided to make a snowman:

Turns out my snowman photo was my favorite of the entire afternoon, funny how things work out. Days like this give me a lot of respect for adventure photographers like Patrick Orton.

I wasn't going to leave with nothing so I ended up snapping a few off of my dog Brooks and a hawk that happened to swing by for a second: