Heavens Above and BelowEastside of Lake Tipsoo, Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington, USA. October 2, 2010. © Copyright Richard Mitchell,
Touching Light Photography - all rights reserved.

I had arrived at Lake Tipsoo very early in the morning, after an entire night of star photography. Departing my car under the light of my LED headlamp, I had to look around to find the trail out to the lake. It was nearly completely dark this evening. The moon had just risen around 1 or 2 AM, and was only about 1/4 full on this evening. As I walked through the woods and across the meadow to the east side of the lake, I was very aware that I had read of a few photographers encountering a Black Bear and her cubs near this location just a few weeks before. Okay, I'll admit, if bears didn't like sheep, I'd have been a bit sheepish about hiking around this lake all alone in the dark of the night, but truth be known, I knew that Black Bears had been know to occasionally dined on sheep, so it didn't seem like a good idea to be sheepish just now.

My other plan didn't look too promising either. For the first time in my life, I actually had a canister of bear repellant spray with me in case I was bothered while hiking around after dark. My PLAN was to go with a friend, and if a bear approached, spray my friend, thereby incapacitating him, after which I was confident I could run from the bear without being followed. Lacking a friend , and remembering that bears actually liked bear spray as long as it wasn't in their eyes, I was even fearful of discharging the bear spray for fear of simply providing condiments for their meal.

Arriving at the east shore of the lake, I unshouldered my heavy camera backpack and began setting up my camera, trying to imagine the scene in front of me (it was to dark to see it). In fact, this was a unique exercise in "previsualization". At least it got my mind off the bears.

I had hoped to shoot the Milky Way above Mt. Rainier, but by this hour, the Milky Way was to the north (right) of the peak, so I set up for this classic shot of Mt. Rainier in the dwindling dark of night (c'mon guys, give me a break, I once opened the door to my darkroom, and all of the dark leaked out!).

Anyway, the lake was mirror smooth, and I captured this heavenly image above (and below) Mt. Rainier. Enjoy!

Technical Details: Canon 5D Mark II at ISO 6400, Canon EF17-40mm f/4L lens at f/4.0, 30 second exposure, high-ISO noise reduction on (standard), long-exposure noise reduction on.



This photograph is not
in the public domain and may not be used in electronic,
print, or any other form, without advance permission from Richard
Mitchell.

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