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| Last weekend we backcountry skied a summit in the Raggeds subgroup of Colorado’s Elk Mountains. As viewed from our perch in the sky, during sunrise the 14ers of the Elks made a stunning baseline for clouds and azure sky (the jutting mountain on the left is Capitol Peak).
With a film camera I would have needed a gradient filter to catch this shot without making the mountains a black “cardboard cutout” silhouette or exposing the sky as too bright, as the sunlit sky and dark mountains were too different in brightness for the film to record details in both. With a digital camera the solution was simple: take two shots with different exposures, then combine in Photoshop to approximate what our eyes saw that morning — including the retina burn of a hot sun just under the horizon as well as faint details on the mountainsides. (If you can’t see any details in the mountains, then adjust monitor brightness.) I like the way the hot spot keeps my eyes bouncing around on the photo… (click image to enlarge) |
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
