Washington State is home to some of the most impressive mountain landscapes in the continental United States. Its mountains have been deeply carved by glaciers, resulting in incised valleys, hanging cirques, and lakes perched near ridge tops that offer striking vistas of glacier-clad peaks.
The Glacier Peak Wilderness, located in northern Washington, is no exception to this. Deep within this wilderness lies Image Lake, a place I have visited several times in my life, even though it requires a 25 km one-way hike with an elevation gain of over 1200 m. What impresses me most about this place is the richness of the green meadows surrounding the sapphire blue lake, whose basin also serves as a natural amphitheater. This amphitheater provides sweeping views across the southern half of the wilderness, including notable features such as the Ten Peaks Range and Glacier Peak itself.
The verdant, flower-dotted meadows surrounding Image Lake create a perfect setting to take in such an expansive view. To accentuate the interplay between the flora and the vast landscape, the photograph was composed of the perspective of the local vegetation that carpets the basin, including the western pasque flower seed-bearing heads shown in the photograph. In the distance, this photo reveals a green carpet surrounding the lake, while the foreground offers intricate detail of the plant life that constitutes this green carpet.
Capturing this image required an extremely broad depth of field, necessitating the use of a very wide-angle lens at its smallest aperture. Using very slow Kodachrome film kept grain minimal and image resolution high, but it also meant that even under bright conditions, a slow shutter speed was required—making a tripod essential. The final image was produced by scanning the original slide using the Canon 80D camera and processing the digital file in Photoshop.
