Snowcapped Photography

by Nick Coons
Jan 21, 2004

A few days ago, I noticed the top of four peaks as I was driving north on the 101 freeway -- They were snow-capped. I have seen this before, but this is the first time I found it interesting that I could see snow while I was in the valley. Granted, the snow itself wasn't in the valley, but I could see it while I was driving. I only see snow while driving when I'm in Flagstaff, or other places in the state where it snows, but not Phoenix.

I had to have a picture! And not one of those long-distance ones where you can barely make out the subject of the photo, and I don't have telephoto lenses for my still image camera. So you know what this means. Yes! Roadtrip! Well, a miniature one if you can call it that, but a trip out of the valley and into the cold.

Of course, by the end of that day, most of the snow had melted and I would not have had the picture that I wanted. So I'd try later. I went up today, with plenty of overcast, which causes some nice lighting effects, but a little too much unfortunately. The mountain was visible, but the peaks themselves were completely obscured by cloud cover. Drats! Foiled again.

But not really, if you consider some other awesome pictures that are available in this type of weather, like rays of sunlight shining through the clouds, or oddly-shaped shadowing of the mountains. Many photo opportunities present themselves during an overcast day, including the mud splashed on to my car by the passing-by speed demon truck. I know many photographers like to take pictures during overcast days, especially because it makes the light more "smooth" instead of being so overly white that portions of the subject glare onto the lens.

And I agree. Having the sun covered, but not completely hidden, gives photographers a somewhat rare opportunity to take a greater variety of landscape shots in Arizona

Arizona	(air-i'-ZON-u')
The State of Arizona comprises the extreme south-western portion of the United States. It is bounded on the north by Utah, on the east by New Mexico, on the south by Mexico, and on the west by California and Nevada.

. With the sun not glaring you right in the camera lens, you're able to change the orientation of the camera more freely and still end up with a workable image.

Part 2 >>