First Light

This panorama was taken within the same half-hour or so that Country Road and Down that Old Rusty Trail were taken. Beautiful light. I made use of the reflective puddle in the foreground of the horse pasture and let the first light of the morning speak for itself.

Photo notes: Panorama made as detailed here. This one was about 7 images. Prints about 60 inches. Sometimes you can go round and round with editing photos and end up where you started. I thought about trying to bring this one up a bit in terms of exposure, but found my field exposure was just what I wanted . . . I once met a gentleman on the trail to Half Dome in Yosemite (same day I took Vernal Falls Rainbow), and he told me something that has stuck with me about landscape exposures. "Pick your favorite part of the scene and expose for that; let everything else fall where it will." I have done that for years now. This photo was all about the first direct light of the day cresting that ridge, so I exposed for that. And after messing with LAB color space and levels in photoshop, I found that I had done it just right.