It’s back! Snow on the mountaintops. After a few of days of rain and low cloud cover, the peaks reappeared coated with a light dusting of snow. The snow on the mountaintops disappears over the summer and its reappearance signals that autumn is not far behind. I was up in time to see the sunrise and it was a good one. I went out onto the back deck and took a few pictures of the surrounding mountains.
The first one is Mount Rundle. This peak is one of many on this mountain and it’s about 9 km (5.5 miles) northwest of our house. It looks closer because I used a telephoto lens with the focal length set at 100 mm. The picture was taken about 15 minutes after sunrise and the sun had cleared the horizon, shining directly on the peak and the cloud above it.
The next picture also features the same peak on Mount Rundle, this time using a portrait orientation to capture more of the foreground and the sky. The picture was taken minutes earlier, just before the sun had peeked over the horizon so the light is indirect, reflected from the cloud above. This creates a softer light on the mountain, referred to as alpenglow. I also applied the Orton Effect to the image, a technique described in my previous post…http://www.
Today’s final photograph was taken looking down the Bow Valley toward Banff. This is Cascade Mountain, about 22 km (13.4 miles) distant. Again I used a telephoto lens at a focal length of 100 mm. It was taken just after the previous picture and the peak is not yet exposed to direct sunlight. This is a very good example of alpenglow; you can clearly see the reflection off the cloud above.
