Dark of Winter

I’d scouted this on an earlier trip that winter and come back for it on a later weekend, which is not something I often do. The spot is just off the road past the bridge, across from where the turn into the main canyon is — close to the Silent Watcher vantage without being the same place.

The weather did what it had done the first time. Thick snow cloud stacked over the canyon, and if you look at the far side of the Watchman you can see it being peppered with snow while I was standing there.

Everything I shot on the Sigma that winter was black and white in camera. It suits the season and it suits that particular sensor, and by then I’d stopped switching back and forth.

The panoramic shape isn’t a crop I made afterwards. The Quattro lets you apply a crop in the viewfinder while you shoot, so that’s how I framed it in the field — and although I was shooting raw and could have undone it at the desk, I kept it. It’s the picture I actually took.

Same winter as The Expanse and Virgin in the Storm, though a different weekend from either.