Getting Lucky With Landscape Photography

Patience is key in landscape photography. Sometimes one has to wait for all the right elements to line up. Those elements can include weather, sun angle and season; other times one has to just go out and hope for the best. In the case of this image, I hoped for the best and lucked out.

This area is located within Red Rock Canyon National Conservation had me intrigued for a few days this week. I did some research and concluded it had some potential as a photogenic area. I wanted to wait for better skies as the weather forecast only called for “mostly sunny skies” for the rest of the week. In southern Nevada “mostly sunny skies” usually means a wisp or puff of clouds here and there and not much excitement.

In any case, I took a gamble this morning and woke up earlier than normal (4:45 am) before heading into my normal day job. It was tough getting out of a warm bed but I knew I had to do it if I wanted my shot. As I drove to my destination, I noticed the weather forecast was wrong. There were plenty of clouds in the sky but too many clouds had drifted over the horizon where the sun would rise. It looked as though it was going to be a dud sunrise. Nevertheless, I ignored that fact and still hoped for the best.

I finally arrived at my destination. As I waited, the sky started to light up! I lucked out! The sky didn’t light up as much as I had hoped it would but there were some nice colors that reflected off the clouds. The clouds even had a nice orange glow because of the pollution in the air.

As a landscape photographer these are the moments that get me excited about taking photographs. The feeling of a sense of accomplishment after working hard to capture an image keeps me coming back to landscape photography. Better yet, Mother Nature was good to me this morning as I lucked out!