Swiftcurrent Creek and Cracker Flats

Figure 1. Swiftcurrent Creek and Cracker Flats, Glacier National Park, MT.

I made a one week trip to Glacier National Park around Labor Day. This is about the 10th time I have been in this park. Since I planned to do a lot of hiking, I chose late August so that most parts of trails would be free of snow. The downside is that wildflowers have passed their peak. Perhaps early August is the better time for this year, but it is difficult to make an adjustment as this varies with the snow amount in winter. In general, this is a good trip and I've hiked 88 miles in 7 days. This is the first time I hike intensively in such a period and I definitely learned something new from before.

After having hiked for five day with a total of 60 miles, I decided to rest for one day and drove around. In the afternoon, I got a photo as shown in Figure 1 near Many Glacier Hotel. The foreground is Swiftcurrent Creek and the background is Cracker Flats. I should have felt this spot has the potential to be a good photo as I have passed here many times before. Fortunately I executed it this time. I do have some shots with the sky, but I still like this shot best. In fact, this is the first shot I took and it turned out to be my favorite out of almost 100 shots. This photo has good features such as color, contrast and composition. In addition, this is not a traditional Glacier shot.

One of the key elements to make this shot successful is the lighting. It is generally regarded that sunrise and sunset have the best lighting. This is not entirely true, depending on the terrain. In fact, you can get even better lighting when the storm is breaking or forming, for example. And this can happen any time of the day.

Another factor to make this shot work is the exclusion of the sky. Most photographers tend to include the sky in the landscape shot. Although it looks more natural and tells the story better, it may make the photo lose its strength in some situations. This is a mental barrier for most landscape photographers and it takes some time to break it.