Crater Lake National Park, Oregon

Posted on Saturday, Nov 6, 2010

August 14-15, 2010

Crater Lake is as popular as it is beautiful, making it a challenge to capture images that don’t look like every other image of the lake posted on Flickr. This was my fourth visit to the national park but the first time I managed to capture any images that I would consider successful.

The first image, the tree silhouettes, was taken just after sunset. I knew I wanted to photograph this scene as soon as it came into view from the passenger seat of our truck. Unfortunately, there was no place to stop or pull over. Darla had to drive a quarter mile down the road where I jumped out of the truck, grabbed my gear from the camper, and ran back uphill, dodging traffic the whole way. Light changes so quickly at this time of day that I wasn’t sure I would get set up before it was completely gone. I’m glad I made the effort – as were the many mosquitoes that feasted on me while I took this shot.

Just as at Sparks Lake, I woke up the next morning hoping for clouds; only this time I had reason to believe I might be in luck. We had experienced a pretty intense electrical storm the night before that was accompanied by dense cloud cover. The clouds were still hanging around the following morning. Once I stepped outside, my concern shifted from would there be clouds to would there be too many clouds. In the end, a tiny gap between the horizon and the layer of clouds above it was just enough to allow a narrow plane of lavender light through. It lasted no more than a minute or two before disappearing.

The final image was taken about half an hour after sunrise. It had actually become darker as more clouds moved in. Then, just for a few seconds – barely long enough to set up my tripod – a shaft of light found its way through the clouds and danced along the far side of the crater.

[Click on a thumbnail to view the entire image.]

©2011 Timothy Linn