honorable mention
Mashrur Alam Khan canadaPhoto © Mashrur Alam Khan
title
The mighty Grand Teton kissed by the rising sun
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entry description
I have always wanted to photograph the ethereal moment when the first light of the day hits the peak of a mountain. The opportunity presented itself when I visited the Grand Teton national park with my friends in August, 2019. We woke up at 4 AM and started to drive to see and capture this beautiful moment. As soon as I reached there, I saw a vertical 4x5 composition, with the trees leading to the peak of the Grand Teton. Luckily, we had almost zero wind on that day, so the glowing mountain top was reflected on the nearly still water in the snake river, which added a lot to the composition. I also noticed the moving clouds on the sky, so I immediately knew that I would go for a long exposure to capture the motion in the clouds. I took out my Lee polarizer and it did a great job getting rid of the glare in the water. I focused on the peak of the mountain, and took a few test shots until I was happy with the composition. Afterwards, I took out my Lee little stopper to take a long exposure shot. The Lee stopper app suggested about 1.5 or 2 minutes of exposure time, but I knew that I would have to stop sooner than that as the light was increasing at every second during the sunrise. I made a guesswork and stopped at 77 seconds, which was just enough to make the water and the clouds smooth without overexposing the highlights. I was really happy with the final result.back to gallery