Forest of Cloud

For the second day in a row I went out looking for sunrise. Morning rays rolling across my mountain home, shining its rays into the peaks and valleys. I got very lucky this morning, a rare summer thermal inversion was taking place, and I was racing to the a scene I have shot twice before. Looking Glass Rock, not from the common overlook along the Blue Ridge Parkway, but form bellow, getting myself in line with the top of the mound. While I have a few shots of the stone faces of Looking Glass Rock standing firm within a sea of cloud, this particular valley had caught my eye early on in the shoot. This simple valley where the mist had pooled. As the morning wore on, eventually I realized this was going to be a magical shot, the morning rays burning off the top lays of mist revealing a treasure bellow, tree tops within a cloud forest. Sometimes it pays to keep your eyes open, and find compositions as they develop.

A lot of landscape photography is measured, you know your composition before the light kicks off, but on rare occasions such as this, your composition may develop into two, or three smaller shots within a given environment. Paying attention while in the field is very important, and I implore those of you getting into photography to still go out, set your composition, look at what you’re shooting. Then, once you have that shot mostly composed, take a good, LONG look around you, make sure you’re not missing the bigger scene.

At first, when you’re out photographing your landscapes, you’ll absolutely want to shoot everything wide open. It’s natural you feel those big beautiful landscapes are the end all be all. You may question why you should look at a silly thing like a telephoto. You will say “I just need an even wider lens!”. Trust me, a lot of us do this, and a lot of us have one of those ultra wide lenses in a bag, waiting for those perfect opportunities, not a thing in the world wrong with it. That being said, as these smaller landscapes develop within a scene, you will want to be able to properly frame then. Fill your frame, get something magical, to do that without having to crop down over much? Telephoto.

Of course I used a monster of a lens to capture this, I was actually shooting this scene with a friend who was trying to capture birds. He was using my wildlife lens. So, as he was getting frustrated I swapped lenses with him for a few moments, and worked that telephoto range to see if I could bring you something magical. I do hope you enjoy.

ISO: 160
Aperture: f8
SS: 1/500th
Focal: 301