Mt McKinley, (Denali) and the Toklat river, Denali National Park, Alaska. Canon 5D Mark II, 24-105mm (35mm) f/4L IS, 20 sec. @ f/22, ISO 50, circular polarizer, 4 stop graduated ND filter.
I don’t know how many photos of Denali I have, but I know its a lot. On this morning, the second of two mornings of light in my 9 days in Denali, I decided to target Polychrome Pass for first light instead of the mountain. That was moderately successful and I’ll share that image in the next post. While working my way west as the morning unfolded–clouds changing constantly, I stopped by this familiar scene along the Toklat river. The angle of light on the ripples in the water caught my attention so I put some effort into making a landscape (little did I know that three bears were walking toward me on the bridge over this river).
Its the pattern in this scene that adds enough interest to make it work. In order to soften the look I used a 4 stop neutral density filter (thats basically a dark piece of glass that you screw on to the lens which allows an increased time of the shutter opening). That along with a polarizer gave me a 20 second exposure, making the water movement slightly smooth and blurry.
Denali, although a small part of the scene is a notable feature on the right side of the frame. This shot was taken at 10:00am, pretty late for landscape photography on a clear day. By the time I drove to a spot with a full view of the mountain clouds were already forming thickly.
