Monte Fitz Roy

kdog

Hi everyone. I just returned from a quick trip to Patagonia with a fellow photographer friend and thought I'd share my photos. We only had time to hit a couple of iconic locations, and Mt Fitz Roy was the first one. Most of these were processed on my laptop on the plane, but seem OK to me. Would love to hear any suggestions or critiques on how I can make them better or do better next time.

1) On the mid-afternoon drive out to El Chalten at the base of Mt. Fitz Roy we were treated to views like this.

2) The view of the mountains from the road was so nice we decided to shoot sunrise the next morning from the area and arrived well before dawn to just that.

3) The sky was full of lenticular clouds that were just starting to illuminate in the pre-dawn light. Never seen anything like it.

4) Still pre-dawn, I broke out my telephoto lens.

5) First light with crazy lenticular cloud formations.

6)

7)

8) Sunrise continues...

9) Later this day we started hiking up to what would be our base camp for the next couple of days.
Along the way we were treated to this view of the Piedras Blancas Glacier.

10) We rolled out of our tents around 3 am to make the ascent to the iconic Laguna de los tres view of Fitz Roy. It was raining lightly and the mountains were completely socked in. We started the trek anyway, but eventually bailed out when rain increased, the visibility decreased and it appeared hopeless for a decent sunrise. We descended, crawled back into our tents and when the rain eventually subsided later in the day, we got up, ate breakfast, did some exploring and discovered this place.

11) Next morning it was raining lightly, but we decided what the heck and went for the lake again. Pay dirt.

12)

13) Long exposure (82 seconds) attempt at showing cloud movement. A bit disappointing. Not enough clouds and/or too short an exposure I guess.

14)

That's all I got. I hope you enjoyed them, and would love to hear any feedback.
Joel

black mamba

That's some really impressive work, Joel. My favorites are the lenticular cloud shots but, honestly, each one is a powerful image. kudos, brother.

denisegoldberg

You have some beautiful images here! My favorites are 1, 3, 5, and 11.

kdog

@black mamba said:
That's some really impressive work, Joel. My favorites are the lenticular cloud shots but, honestly, each one is a powerful image. kudos, brother.

Thanks very much, Tom. It took a lot of planning and effort but I'm just thrilled that we pulled it off and got good shots.

Oh, and since you like the lenticulars, here's one more for you.

Cornflake

Fabulous, Joel. You had great subject matter and you made the most of it.

kdog

@denisegoldberg said:
You have some beautiful images here! My favorites are 1, 3, 5, and 11.

Thank very much, Denise. It's interesting to see which ones people like best.

kdog

@Cornflake said:
Fabulous, Joel. You had great subject matter and you made the most of it.

Thanks, Don. I really appreciate it.

torags

Fantastic all... Joel

Glad you had a good trip

Stumblebum

Wow K-dog! Big Score! Love them all really! And you did that on plane.....unbelievable!

Congrats and Bravo!!

kdog

@torags said:
Fantastic all... Joel

Glad you had a good trip

Thanks, Rags. I really appreciate it.

kdog

@Stumblebum said:
Wow K-dog! Big Score! Love them all really! And you did that on plane.....unbelievable!

Congrats and Bravo!!

Thanks very much, Taz. It's rare that I spend more than 5 minutes on a photo. The surprising part is that they still look good on my real computer after processing them on the laptop. It's a pretty nice but tiny laptop -- Dell XPS 13. Just over 2 lbs. Anyway it was a great trip. I hope you're having a good holiday season.

jerryr

nice work - #8 and #12 are very stunning!

kdog

@jerryr said:
nice work - #8 and #12 are very stunning!

Thanks, Jerry!

robvanpraat

You must have been there at a lovely time. When we were there were too many clouds. Only on the way back we could see the mountain (still in the clouds, but at least we could see it). Great pictures!!!

sarasphotos

Wow Joel, another spectacular set. On #2 I expecially liked seeing the city in the scene. My other two favorites are 5 & 8 for the clouds, composition and exposure.