Distant Rumblings

I set off into the Chugach Mountains on an early October evening, looking for a small lake to reflect fall foliage colored by sunset. No luck. Finally, I spotted this tiny pond at the 2000-foot level of ridge overlooking a steep glacier. But, by the time I hiked up to take a photo, the sunset had faded. Rather than leave, I waited another 45 minutes until the “blue hour” developed. I used a zoomable flashlight to carefully paint the foreground details with light, including the hill on the right. It felt just like using the paintbrush tool in Photoshop, except I was waving a real beam of light with my hand! During a full two-minute exposure, I delicately illuminated the grass up to the water’s edge—but not beyond. (Swinging any light onto the surface of the pond would have produced glare and ruined the reflection.) Soft breezes floated across the pond during the shot, but the grass and purple dwarf fireweed remained razor sharp because each blade and petal was lit only briefly. The whole time I worked with the light, the glacier, a mile distant, rumbled eerily with rockslides and calving ice.