Blanketed in Light

Canon EOS 6D | EF 24-105 f/4L IS @55 | 1s | f/14 | ISO 100

Part 3 (and probably the last part) of my series from my recent sunrise outing to Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park.

As I watched the sun rise, I became a little disappointed with the clouds. I was hoping the sunlight would hit the bottom of this layer of clouds and explode with color. Unfortunately there was another layer of clouds on the horizon so by the sun cleared them, it was already too high in the sky to really illuminate the bottom of the clouds the way I would have hoped for. I spent some time shooting directly into the sun because it had this great flare off into the sky due to the haze that had collected overnight.

After some time, I noticed that everything seemed to be glowing from the sunlight and the haze and that in certain spots the sun was just spilling over the edges of the mountains creating some wonderful sun rays and giving everything some fantastic colors. The famous blue ridge haze mixed with the orange/red glow from the sun, making everything glow in wonderful shades of pink and orange.

The Blue Ridge haze also creates one of my favorite effects where the peaks often appear darker than the valleys below. In this particular image I feel lucky that I was able to capture not only that effect but some glowing ridge lines from the low sun.

Please make sure you view large enough to see some of the details that might otherwise be missed (such as the light hitting the branches of the closer trees). And as always, I hope you enjoy viewing my images as much as I enjoyed creating them!