This was a special day. I had dreamed of seeing this view for a long time, and with every step to the north, this was the view I was envisioning. It’s an interesting experience to approach a place you’ve imagined visiting and photographing. As you approach, excitement builds, and for me, so too does anxiety. In these instances, I often feel obligated to take advantage of every moment in front of the view – as if it might disappear or I might miss it if I wait too long. For the vast majority of the time, that feeling has no basis in reality, and is just my own fear of missing a shot. For this day however, it wasn’t far from reality.
We hiked up this valley to get to this view, and for a long time the scene just kept getting better and better. I found myself looking over my shoulder over and over to assess the scene and decide if I should stop walking to photograph it under a bland cloudy sky, but I never did. We progressed on to camp for the night and relaxed. Almost out of nowhere, the cloudy and bland sky started to thin, and all of a sudden the peaks were glowing, and the light had direction and colour!
We franticly put our stuff together and ran over to viewpoints near camp, all the while watching the light run up the walls of the valley. It was a matter of time before this would be gone, and we knew it. I stopped at a less than perfect view and photographed it from there for fear of missing the light. Out of nowhere, my friend turned up and started yelling “Take one more photo then get down from there! It’s much better this way!” He didn’t need to tell me twice, and he was right! We found much more cohesive compositions not far from here.
Given all the effort to get to this spot, the fact that we nearly missed the light was really jarring. It turns out that I was right – if we weren’t paying attention to the weather, we’d have missed this incredible light. We had 3 nights at this location, and this was the only night with any great light – I guess I won’t feel bad looking over my shoulder to watch the weather from here on out!