Glacier Paddle Boarders

It was my last morning in Glacier and I got to the shore of Lake McDonald hoping for some nice sunrise light over the craggy peaks. It was shaping up perfectly, wispy clouds in an otherwise clear sky, and some thicker clouds clinging to the peaks, when a car pulled up and two women hopped out with paddle boards and started settling them in the water. My first thought, of course, was "Well, I guess that's that," and I started walking back to my car.

As a nature photographer I have a near-phobia of humans or human made structures being in my images, because the whole point is documenting the non-human world, but before I got to my car I realized the potential of the scene, and ran back down the dock. They were pretty far out in the lake by then and were just little specks, so I settled in to wait for them to head back in, which I figured wouldn't be long because it was pretty cold out and they weren't terribly bundled up. Pretty soon I heard one say, "My hands are getting cold," and got myself ready. I took a series of shots as they came in, trying to catch a moment when their paddles mirrored one another, and when I finally did I took a shot of the right side of the lake that I used to stitch together a full panorama.

Canon 5d Mark iii, 70-200mm f/4 lens, 1/30 sec at f/11, ISO 200, Gitzo Tripod