Changing of the Guard

Old pine trees are blown over when they get big enough to catch a lot of wind on thin-soiled mountain ridges. But they are replaced by younger trees.

This is my first shot from a "little mountain" this fall. (I only climb little mountains -- mostly under 5 miles round trip -- these days.) Fall leaves were peaking at the end of September in the Adirondack High Peak region, and I was happy to be feeling well enough to go up-hill for over a mile without stopping frequently to rest. As I plodded steadily upward in the pre-dawn darkness, two college-age girls with bobbing headlamps reminded me of my limitations as they passed me on the trail, RUNNING! We exchanged greetings without altering our vastly different paces. I continued, smiling, grateful that whatever limitations I have are not keeping me off the mountain.

This scene caught my eye as I approached the summit of Baxter Mountain, so I set up my tripod to wait for sunrise. I'm glad I got some early shots because clouds shifted, making the view east unattractive when the Sun hit the horizon. After this, my attention shifted to the west.

Canon 5D3
Canon 24-105mm.; Circ. Pol.
0.5 sec. @ f/16; ISO 100
Three vertical frames stitched in PS CC.

P.S. My first comment about this looking "overprocessed" on the the Web is mostly about the cyan saturation (now that I have seen it on my phone). That's a recurring problem for me when I change an image from Adobe RGB 16 bit to sRGB 8 bit. It has something to do with my wide-gamut monitor. Probably could avoid it by switching the calibration setting to sRGB, but it does not happen for all images, and I like processing for the best results on my 16-bit printer, so I'll have to put up with goofy-looking images until I break down and get a better second monitor. (I use a 2-monitor set-up on my desktop, and the sRGB monitor where I park my PS menus is old and tired.)