Fall
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Hood and the Fog at Jonsrud
Its a testament to persistence. I live about 45 minutes from this viewpoint, Jonsrud Viewpoint, near Sandy Oregon. Because this is fairly close, and so cool looking, an image form here has been on my list for a long time. And I go, often. Every time a strikeout. This is the first image I have ever posted from here. I have been there about 6 times, and I finally walked away with an image I liked.
This is a tough spot to shoot. It has great fog in the valley in the morning, but sunrises back-lite Mt. Hood. You can shoot a sunset, but then you don't get the fog. You can see this in many of the mages people post from here. They have fog, and good color in the sky, and then they wash out Hood in the processing and it looks horrible. You just can't get it all when you shoot from here unless you let your tripod sit there all day and shoot both. However, then creeps in the third issue. Clouds. If you live in Portland you know, Hood is a cloud magnet. If you want a sunrise with clouds to catch the color, then you often (99.999 percent of the time) loose Hood in those clouds. If you see Hood, you usually have no clouds. To get hood with clouds around her but not obscuring her, you need patience, and tons of it.
So in this image, I opted for the fog. Clouds came in about 10 minutes after I shot this, but they swallowed Hood. Sigh. Not an easy place to shoot.
The last challenge, the right tripod location. You have to get here early to get the primo tripod spot. Here, I had to show up 1.5 hours before sunrise and wait there, to steak out my spot. When I walked away there was about 12 photographers there. I can't imagine how many there would be if the conditions were even more ideal.
So my hat is off to anyone who got the great trifecta- detail on Hood, colored clouds in the sky and fog in the valley. Its a near impossible feat.
