"Avalanche Gorge."
The cool, blue waters of Avalanche Creek patiently etch their way through a bedrock gorge along Avalanche Creek, in Glacier National Park, Montana. Behind the Lens. This is one of the most photographed spots in all of Glacier National Park. A nice boardwalk trail circles through a mature cedar / cottonwood grove along the banks of Avalanche Creek. This spot, where the trail crosses the creek, has been photographed millions of times, so I had to approach it differently. Let me just say that the colors are real, and they were achieved by the way I photographed the scene. Can you figure it out from those clues? Answer - this is a "light painting," a photograph made in the dark using a flashlight. It is a 15-minute exposure made at 4AM. The blue-ish color in the background is from the natural ambient light, collected over the 15 minutes. The foreground colors are a combination of the blueish natural light, the color of that particular flashlight, and the colors of the rocks themselves. And the rapids blur together into a smooth, blue blur. The result is an original image of a place that gets photographed millions of times every summer. Just Google up "Avalanche Gorge" images and you'll see how boring daylight photographs can be. You have to use your imagination and creativity to make something unique.
