In celebration of fall here is another image of Multnomah Falls in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge from a few years ago. This image was successful as a stock photo, even earning a calendar cover.
As you know, half the effort of creating an image happens in post processing. While this is a necessary task it can also be an exciting process of watching an image transform. many times I started out with an idea in mind and in the end, I was nowhere close to what I envisioned.
This final image is an example of just that. I was up at McKenzie Pass hoping for a normal but great sunset. On the way there I saw the horrible haze of thick smoke from the many forest fires in the NW. Initially I was disappointed but as I started to look around ideas hit me and I started shooting.
The sun was several hours until it set and was a bright orange ball against the smoky sky. That gave me the idea to shoot one of the dead tree snag in the lava fields with a long lens and get a huge red ball of the sun. The problem was I could not frame that shot due to the shape of the land. I just could not get back far enough.
I shot this image around 25 years ago on Mt. Hood, Oregon. Back then I shot mostly film with a 4×5 field view camera. I loved working that way!
This was a lucky day. A storm was pounding the west side of the Cascade Mountains and I was shooting up in the Government Camp area. I have been all around this mountain many times but never had I been in these conditions above the clouds.
As I was set up here, the clouds, once hitting the mountainside, would break up and blow across the pass at the base of the mountain as seen here. I would shoot a frame or two, then the clouds would cover the mountain, so I would wait a little longer until there was a break and the mountain was visible.