July 20, 2020
A week earlier I took a walk up the hill to Matrix Hill Park to have a look around. The view was nice but I couldn’t see our local volcano, Mt. Hood. Yesterday I headed back a bit earlier in the morning to try again.
Up along the switchback as I climbed the grade, I took a picture or two of the local flora.
When I got to the top I still couldn’t see the mountain. Maybe there was a glitch in the Matrix. Then I peered a bit harder – aha! there it is, barely.
I got to thinking that trying to grab a picture in the morning wasn’t the best idea as the mountain had the sun behind and beside it. Not the best lighting.
Oh well, I wandered around a couple of trails I hadn’t visited before and found a large solar array. I would say I had no idea it was there, but I had seen it from Google Maps when I planned my walk the week before. Still, I was surprised at how big it is.
There wasn’t much else new to see and it was getting warm on a day that promised plenty of heat. So I headed back home.
Around 8:00 that night I thought I might have better lighting for my subject so Carla and I drove over to the neighborhood that sits just short of the last bit of trail up to the park. Dang! Still no mountain. Here is a mildly edited photo that shows just how faint the mountain is. I was shooting raw images which means any image would be flat. I brought it into Lightroom and applied the camera standard profile, which would show what the camera saw. I didn’t make any adjustments to the tone. Here is how it looked.
The sun was close to behind us (you can see my shadow on the lower right) so the light was more beautiful than that picture reveals. I adjusted the tones to bring out what we saw. It definitely shows the trees in the foreground much better; the mountain is just mildly enhanced.
We had a cool but dry early late June and early July. I think we need a bit of rain to wash away the crud in the atmosphere. But I can wait.
Mt. Hood can provide a spectacular view when caught in the right light. Here it is on a crystal clear early spring morning (photo taken with my iPhone which loves to make the blues pop).
