Post by Eric Reese
Do you have a special place you like to go with your sweetheart? This photograph is of one of mine. Our trip to this location in Glacier National Park started with a warm lazy summer afternoon drive along Lake McDonald with a soft breeze in our hair that you can only get with top-down convertible driving. This day was one of those days in summer you dream about all winter. The sound of the motor accelerating as I am shifting through the gears and winding up the freshly paved black top of the Going-to-the-Sun road.
Only one problem, I was enjoying the drive so much, I lost track of time and arrived late to my planned photo location as the sun was setting. Not only that, as I drove into this ravine on the Garden Wall, the weather changed to a 10 to 20 mph wind coming down the wall! My first shot brought doubt on me that maybe I was too late, and the conditions had deteriorated too much to get the photo I was dreaming about on the drive up. The flowers where moving and the light was fading.
But, I stopped, rolled up my sleeves, took a deep breath and thought about what I needed to do the capture this scene. I needed to stop the action of the moving flowers; and fast as the sun was already over the horizon. I cranked the ISO on my camera up to 800. What?! 800? I always shoot at ISO100! I then opened my aperture to f8 even though I always shoot at f11 for the greatest dept of field. At this point my shutter speed was 1/25 of a second. I also handheld the camera so I could change the framing very quickly for maximum opportunity of angles. WOW! It worked. I never could have captured this photo with my medium format film camera that I started with as a pro photographer! I tested the abilities of my modern full frame mirror-less camera and was impressed.