A friend of mine was working in Alaska. He convinced me to hop on a plane and visit Anchorage while he had a place to stay. A holiday weekend was coming up and I decided to take a long weekend and see Anchorage. He was working so most of the sightseeing was on my own. The weather was a welcome change from the heat in Texas.
On this particular day I had parked the car and was hiking on some trails. I had been gone for hours and stumbled across this stream. When I hike to take pictures, I carry a backpack that gets pretty heavy. On this day, the pack contained two cameras, three lenses, a flash, various filters and memory cards. On top of that, I strap on a tripod and this is a great shot to illustrate why it is worth the extra effort to tote around the three legged tool.
In order to catch the movement of the stream, you have to allow your camera to take a picture with the shutter open about a second or so. If I tried to hand hold the camera and take this shot, the entire photo would have been blurry. I just wanted to blur the water. The tripod allows the detail and sharpness of the rocks and leaves to pop while blurring the water into a milky white substance. An added bonus of using a tripod is getting sharpness to print really big. I printed this shot 3 feet wide and 4 1/2 feet tall and it looks magnificant. I credit the tripod!
