Winter Morning with Mt. Shasta

This was a crisp winter morning.  After enjoying a hike mostly in the shadow of mountains, we crested this ridge.  At that point the sky was mostly blue, but the clouds were just starting to form.  If something good was going to happen it might come and go quickly.  Also, the morning light was really good.

I switched into focused go time mode, which in the snow feels like a snail’s pace.  After getting our walkie-talkies on I started back down the opposite slope to get in position.  The distance to cover wasn’t going to be great so I opted against taking the time to get my snowshoes on.  This resulted in me basically post holing to my knees in many places.

I tried several different spots but couldn’t get everything I wanted out of the shot.  My hiker was lost in the background, or a tree would end up right in front of Mt. Shasta.  Each time I moved the clouds were a little different, but not quite a home run yet.  Eventually, I was able to get the hiker into a great spot.  Shortly thereafter, the clouds became roughly what you see here.  At that point I was moving as fast as I could to get to this spot.

For many images I am set up and not moving the camera for hours.  In this case it was less than 5 minutes.  This awesome moment with these distinctive clouds disappeared as fast as it happened.  I was only able to get a single 3 shot burst of this particular moment.  No moving around to check out a slightly different angle, etc.  At that moment it didn’t matter, I knew what I had!  The day was already great, but there is a special feeling living the rest of it after getting this!