Steptoe Butte sunrise

What do you do when you visit some place for first time and you see some great light before you reach there?

I had similar experience during my steptoe butte photo shoot. I left from hotel with friends at 4:00 and by the time we reach bottom of the butte we saw some nice colors. My heart started beating faster and i was thinking will i make it to top of butte to catch sunlight? Answer was NO. We reached around 10 mins late and sun was already over horizon!

But, Mother Nature had better plans for us.After 30 minutes of nice light, Sun was covered in dense clouds. I could barely see it but colors were more vibrant than at sunrise and i suddenly see some light in sky and i think it was sun. I grabbed my camera and set my tripod and started taking pictures. Above picture is one of those beautiful moment which i captured at that time..

How this picture was made?

I used Nikon D800, Nikon 70-200 F2.8. at 70mm, ISO 100, F9.0 and 1/15 sec.

It's a hand blend of 2 shots. One for the Sky and one for the foreground as i didn't have GND Filter. After manual blend in Photoshop CS6, imported in Lightroom. Minor Curve and local adjustment in Lightroom and exported for web.

Thanks for looking 

Stormy Sunset light over rolling hills

This image i capture from a stormy sunrise last weekend. I had always wanted to go to palouse region and see these rolling hills. Last weekend i had chance to go there with my friends Jacob and Rod.
Drive to Palouse region is around 5 hours from seattle which is quite a bit of drive. We decided to drive non stop so that we can catch some sunset light over palouse falls. Light was not great but had fun shooting star trails for first time!

Next morning was planned for Steptoe butte. Though i slept for under 2 hours, i was feeling very refreshed in morning and quite excited too. Light was looking promising and we managed to reach top of butte and able to capture some light. Next day i decided to shoot again from same area at sunrise, though weather prediction was not looking good and was cloudy. By the time i went to bed it was already 1:00 in morning. I had slept for less than 3 hours in last 2 days but i decided to woke up at 3:45 ( decent enough time to reach butte before sunrise) and left for sunrise alone when my mates decided to sleep in our Hotel.

When i reached butte i saw cloud was covering half of butte, not very good sign. I reached top of butte but it was so misty that i couldn't see my car when i stepped outside it !!. I decided to go back to plan 2 where mist was less and parked there( and parking lot was already full .. thanks to workshop going on).

I decided to take time lapse as clouds were moving very fast and was waiting for sun to shine over rolling hills. After about 1.5 hour when everyone has left, suddenly color was spread everywhere and i was feeling lucky for not turning back to bed ;)

Photo details:
Nikon D800, Nikon 70-200 with Nikon TCII 1.7
F11, 250mm, 1/80 Sec, ISO 100

I hope you enjoy it!