Photo Perfect Morning

This morning, when I got off work at 7 am and walked outside, I encountered a perfect morning. The sun was just beginning to rise above the Eagle Mountains and the sky was a flawless blue. So, needless to say, I raced home, grabbed my camera and my dog, and headed up to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center above our valley. The Oregon Trail runs right through the hills outside of my home town, and the interpretive center is on a hill that affords a wonderful view of the mountains above and valley below. Not to mention that there are photo ops everywhere you look. And Bandit, our Springer Spaniel, had a complete hay day...I don't think he stopped moving the entire two hours we were up there.

I walked 1.4 miles almost all the way down to the wagon ruts and back, but it wasn't until I got almost to the bottom that I realized that the white balance on my camera was set to indoor lighting...which would be why the first half of all of my photos had a blue tint to them. Not cool. Thankfully, I was able to replicate most, if not all, of the photos on the way back up the hill. Granted, the lighting wasn't quite as good was it was an hour before, but I lived. And I won't be making that mistake again.

Here's just a couple of the 113 photos I took up there. I did do some actions on them, mostly things like PW's "Boost" and "Fresh & Colorful", but there are a couple of stylized edits.

One of the wagons with "Fresh & Colorful" and "Boost". Love the colors!

The Elkhorn Mountains to the west of our hometown.

One of the wagons with the Elkhorns in the background. Tiiiiiny aperture for large depth of field, PW's "Heartland" and "Boost".

A box on the side of the wagon in the photo above. With "SuperFunHappy" action. Yum

A very yellow wagon wheel with some color tweaking to really bring out the yellow.

Needless to say, I had an absolute blast and I would love to do it again sometime when the temp is higher than 40 degrees, the wind is blowing less than 10 mph, and I can get out there as the sun is coming up to catch the pink on the Elkhorns. But believe me, I'm not complaining about the time I had today. Not at all.