8:35 am on 9/2/04. The light was phenomenal as the wind laid down and the mirrored lake came into its glory. The aspen groves were just turning. There were three photographers at my sides. No one said anything, as we were busy trying to capture this very rare moment. In the intervening years, many of the coniferous trees have died. Maroon Bells, near Aspen, CO., is the most photographed spot in Colorado. I enjoyed reaching back to the RAW file and processing with the newer software. (Apple's Aperture) This image was captured with the use of 0.6 & 0.9 soft graduated neutral density filters.
[Mar. 17th, 2009 11:52:24 AM]
Last day of voting: It was a surprise to me to hear of the wide range or reactions to the color saturation and brightness. Some even suggested this was an HDR image. To me, this image represents what I saw with my eyes that morning in September 2004. Those who have never visited Colorado's high elevation lakes on a sunny morning with thin atmosphere may never have seen this kind of atmospheric event. It was magical, luminous light which I've only seen a few times since. This is not a HDR image. One image with saturation and vibrancy pushed only to the point of representing the natural scene. I understand the skepticism. Makes me question my monitor calibration, but I think I'm on target. The camera was the Canon 10D. At 6.3 Mpix, this was a big scene for that early DSLR. Contributed to the painterly effect, I'm sure.
[Mar. 17th, 2009 11:58:52 AM]
I was at Maroon Lake at sunrise. The alpenglow light touched the peaks. The lake was rippled at sunrise, but it smoothed out by 8:00 am. At the time, many viewers of the sunrise image were skeptical of the red light on the peaks. I'm glad I stayed around for the wind to lay down.
Statistics
Place: 47 out of 1129 Avg (all users): 6.6531 Avg (commenters): 7.5455 Avg (participants): 6.6641 Avg (non-participants): 6.5915 Views since voting: 2793 Views during voting: 720 Votes: 467 Comments: 82 Favorites: 14 (view)
Surreal. 720x478 just can't do this one justice. I'd love to have one at 1680x1050 for my desktop. A 30x20 inch for the wall. Even though the bells are shot a lot this one is perfection. Congrats!
I'm hoping to leave comments on as many photo's in this challenge as possible... out of (currently) 1124 images, I gave 30 of them a 9. Your image was one of those 30.
Serenity indeed, a fantastically crystal clear reflection in the water. Great use of primary colours, and the compositional lead in lines work from all angles. A really lovely shot, and I expect a finish in the top 5%
This challenge is just about killing me! So many wonderful amazing photos entered just like this one. Excellent reflection and composition, makes me want to pack my bags right now and travel the world in search of this place. Excellent work, congratulations of a stunning photo, a fav and a 10 for me.
This is a really good image; if this was one of mine I'd perhaps take the yellow saturation down a little, but only you know what the best colour settings were.
Classic view of the bells, with beautifully captured reflection. I would dial back the saturation on the yellows and greens just a small bit to give it a more natural feel.
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