These captures, “Winter Dawn over Mount Tom”, are one the best in my portfolio, maybe a career photograph.
But the back-story is fascinating, I awoke at about 2:30AM, things outside looked good. The alarm goes off at 6AM, right in the middle of an unnerving dream. The dream was quite scary, and now fully alive in my consciousness. I lost my then six-year-old daughter in a fancy shopping center, and at the end of the dream at 6AM, she is whispering, “I will be back”. Out of the blue, the dream is gone.
It took a few minutes to shake off the unsettled dream, and then I was getting ready for the drive. Coffee first! I drove to my selected location and took than a few minutes to pay respects to one of my mentors, Galen Rowell. This was a perfect subject for him. Thank you! I planned to take this concept further, using my mature knowledge of mindful photography, and all the wonderful technological advances of the last 20 years since the awful plane crash here in Bishop.
Being mindful, “when it counts” has become quite easy for me lately, I have been shooting the better part of fifty years.
I considered various compositions and made sure to shoot all of them. The incredible light lasted about twenty minutes; in this case the better images were made near the end of this period.
I hope you are as charmed by it too!!