About the Image(s)

Lassen Volcanic National Park is one of Northern California’s treasured gems that doesn’t get the crowds of better known national parks elsewhere in the state.

Mt. Lassen is an active volcano that last erupted just over a century ago. Today, a two-lane highway twists and turns up the side of the 10,000 foot mountain. Just past the park entrance, signs of volcanic activity are evident in fumaroles belching steam into the air from the bowels of the volcano.

A little farther up the road lies Emerald Lake, a relatively small body of water yet big enough to reflect the conifers on the other side. I visited there In October with old friends and reflected on the many times we hiked, backpacked and skied at Mt. Lassen. There was just enough of a ripple on the lake to give the reflection an impressionistic feel. I worked with the image in Photoshop to bring up the color and cropped it to a 16X9 aspect ratio.

Equipment: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV with my 24??”105 lens at 105mm. Since I was shooting handheld, I bumped up the ISO to 400, enabling me to get a reasonably sharp image at f/4 and 1/160 sec. White balance as shot: 5,100 temp. In post processing with Adobe Camera Raw I set the profile to camera landscape, reduced the exposure slightly, added some contrast, reduced highlights significantly and brought the shadows up. Color enhancements were achieved by adding vibrance and saturation (+8), texture, clarity and dehaze (+17, +31 and +53, respectively) and by working with the curves sliders to bring up highlights (+43) and shadows (+23).

Autumn is great time to visit Lassen. The summer crowds have largely disappeared, Indian Summer weather brings cool, crisp nights and comfortable warm days. Splashes of color abound and wildlife are moving about preparing for winter. I think it’s my favorite time up there, a three-hour drive from Sacramento.