This shot is the culmination of one of the most amazing days I have had photographing landscapes. It isn’t often that all the conditions come together for a great shot. There are so many variables: the light, the weather, the clouds, the wind, and on and on. Many times you show up and wait and nothing happens. This had to be my lucky day.

My good friend and fellow photographer Luke Tingley had only this one day to shoot this location due to road construction and the fact that we were leaving the following morning. It all started with an awesome sunrise from the same area (see my earlier post). We were pretty thrilled that we were able to come away with a “keeper” and would have been perfectly content with that being the shot of the day. We went back to town and had some lunch before returning later in the afternoon to wait for sunset. The skies had clouded over and a light rain fell occasionally. Not much we could do about the weather, so we spent our time looking for a different spot to shoot from than in the morning. I settled in to mine on the edge of a rocky cliff and waited. The rain intensified and the wind picked up. I covered myself up as much as possible and tried to keep warm. The closer it came to sunset, the less promising our chances looked. Just about the time I started to think about packing up though, the sun broke through a sliver in the clouds off to the west. The clouds began to turn pink and the next thing you know the mountains and the wall behind Bearhat Mountain were painted red. Simply amazing! What are the odds of having an amazing sunrise and sunset in the same day? It was truly my lucky day!

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