Funny story about this picture. As I rushed to get into position to capture the colors reflecting off of the snow I found a soft spot in the snow. I knew better because as I was walking I noticed that I could see a little sprig of spruce sticking out of the snow. If you didn't know that means that there is a hollow pocket of under and around what is a buried spruce tree. As I was thinking that I probably shouldn't step there I sunk up to my armpits. I'm 6'3". I didn't want to miss the shot so I took this picture while up to my armpits in snow.
Matanuska Glacier and the Auroras
The beginning of a special Aurora hunting night. My son has always wanted to go with me on one of my aurora trips. So off we went. Our first stop was the scenic Matanuska overlook. I stopped here because the 97% full moon was the perfect amount of light to light the glacier and surrounding landscape. Added bonus is the auroras sneaking around the mountains, to the left. My son finally got to see the northern lights.
I intentionally focused on the stump leaving the background out of focus. The tree stump is a focus stack of 8 images. I wanted to have the stump as well as the grass growing out of the top in focus. What drew me to this were the beautiful swirls in the the wood and how they almost mirrored the swirl pattern in the grass growing around it.
The last little bit of sun peeks over the mountian range. The beautiful light and the amazing patterns in the mudflats made for a perfect sunset picture. This was shot from the Glenn Alps/Flat top hillside using my 150-600mm Tamron.According to Google maps the distance is around 47 miles to the mountains