Clear skies, so I went driving around to find a new spot to photograph Mt. Rainier. Donna was with me; we may have been delayed by stopping for ice cream. We may have parked by the the Puyallup River for a while looking at a different view of Rainier waiting for a truck to move so I could up my camera in the right spot. The truck never moved.
We drove on.
Found a pretty view along a very lightly traveled ‘road’ and set up the tripod and camera. This is a stitched photo (nine images made by moving the camera behind the lens). The sun had set about 15 minutes earlier for the valley, but since Mt. Rainier is over 3 miles high, it had not yet set on Rainier. There is some reddening of the light on the mountain. I love sunset views of the mountain, and was really happy to capture this one.
Technical info: taken with a camera. I was pretty cavalier about settings: I looked at the back of the camera (the screen) and when it looked alright, I took the shots really fast before the light changed. Sometimes, you just want to enjoy the day and maybe you get a good shot, maybe you don’t. :)
This one photograph pretty much sums up the Pacific Northwest for me. And life: sometimes you go a long time just wondering WTF you are about, and then, bang, beauty and power and nature and luck just smack you a good one.
I looked at my first attempt at a panorama, which was just three shots, not nine, and I found a surprise: some sort of paraglider was out.
The glider is quite tiny in the overall image, but the details are a bit clearer if we go in to 100% and do a little sharpening:
I don’t know who wanted to be up in the air at that hour, but I hope he or she had some fun with it.