A friend reached out and asked if I wanted to join him and another friend on a hike into the wilderness. But there was a catch, we couldn't get into the parking lot until 5pm. So we would be hiking into the wilderness in the evening. We set a goal was to reach a lake around the time of sunset. The hike started off pretty flat and easy, with stunning lake and mountain views along the way. The farther we got on the hike though, the steeper the trail got.

We finally arrived at the lake, and then we all scattered about looking for compositions for the sunset shot. I took a few photos around the lake before sunset for test shots. I settled on a spot with the prominent peaks in the distance, an island rock in the center, and some more rocks poking just above the water in the foreground. There was a small bit of wind, but just enough that where ripples on the water most of the time we were there. Thankfully just as the sky was putting on a show, the wind settled down just long enough for a nice reflection.

My sense was that I wanted to represent this scene with as much in focus as possible. So I took three images, one focused on the foreground, one on the midground island, and one on the peaks in the distance. I named this image 'Crescendo' because this was the big finale of the evening and my last image. After this, we packed up and hiked back mostly in the dark.