I recently took a trip up to Jefferson Park with Dan Sherman, Alan Howe, and Dan’s brother Ben for some fall magic.  Dan and I have planned a trip up here 3 times before and all three times abandoned the trip due to inclamate weather, so we were happy to take our chances on this clear day.  On our drive up we discussed the hike and the location of our camp… well, I didn’t really participate, as I had never been here before.  Alan was in disbelief.  He truly thought I was kidding.  I don’t blame him, as this has become a classic Oregon location.

Clear days have been all too easy to come by the past month, and have been causing me some trouble.  In case I haven’t ruined your perception on what’s beautiful yet, let me start by telling you it is not clear skies.  It’s the cloudy days that make the skies light up with wonderful colors, and defuse light to make everything look beautiful.  This day was not beautiful… yet.  J

This picture above was taken less than an hour before sunset, and had me a little more than concerned.  Fortunately, I saw clouds slowly rolling in behind me, and they looked like they were going to be best looking west, so I made my way to the east side of the mountain.  At this point both Dan and Alan had already made their way to find different compositions at different lakes.  Once I got to the east side of the lake it was clear that I was going to be dead wrong about the location of the clouds so I made my way back, finding a few nice little compositions along the way.

This picture was taken less than 30 minutes after the previous one.  The clouds were pushing south-east, but would they stay?

Yes, oh yes, they would!  Truly one of the most beautiful places and sunsets I’ve ever seen!  I scrambled around the lake to find as many different compositions I could while the skies BLEW UP!!!

When the epic lighting had past, I stood at the shore and waited for the lighting to be just right to start shooting some long exposure shots.  As I stood there Alan joined me along the shore.  As he approached I casually said, “Hey Alan.”  He replied, “What’s up?”  I said, “Oh, just shootin’ fish in a barrel”.

Sunrise was a bust, but I have little to complain about.  I've been busy this fall, so stay tuned for more fall colors!  J