It was 15:00.  After a full morning and half an afternoon of very satisfying shooting, I was wending my way back home.  I had been to this location many times before, and always regarded the morning light to be more favorable for this mostly east-facing mountain side; strike one.  A lot of the snow that had fallen the night before and during the morning had melted, making this less spectacular than it would have looked a few hours earlier; strike two.  I had started my day with a goal of seeing things differently than I had done before, and yet there was this grand (albeit often-photographed) vista before me, falling right into one of my patterns; strike three.

 

Although it seemed that I had struck out at this location, I felt that I ought to set up the tripod and camera and do some work here.  My normal pattern would be to put on a wide-angle lens and capture more of the sweeping vista.  Instead, the camera had a 50mm lens mounted on it and I decided to stick with that choice.  I panned around to see what was the best composition I could fit into the frame, and settled on this one.  Despite the narrower field of view than I normally use for this valley, I ended up being quite satisfied with the results.  The warm light, coupled with the lush aspens, oaks, and pines, painted a scene that was very representative of my experience on that day.  It has quickly become one of my favorite images of this area (and I have captured many images here over the last several years).