Sunrise, Hilton Lakes, by Paul Roark

The Hilton Lakes basin in California's Eastern High Sierra is an easy backpack trip and, yet, amazingly free of crowds. At slightly over 10,000 feet in elevation, the high lakes in the basin share the usual High Sierra characteristics that keep me returning to that environment every year. While we usually enjoy the alpenglow just after sunset, the glassy surfaces of the lakes in the morning can make the sunrise alpenglow twice as beautiful.

This photo is clearly a real departure from my norm. For years I generally shot medium format black and white only. This shot, however, is not only color, but composed of five 35 mm frames, combined in Photoshop -- manually. The camera was a Ricoh GR 1 -- which has an excellent 28 mm lens and weighs all of 7 oz. This shot covers more than 180 degrees -- the shoreline is essentially straight where the shot was taken.

The Summer of '99 was the first time in years that I took color film on my backpacking trips. I had been experimenting with Konica Impresa 50 color negative film for several reasons. First, it has very fine grain. Second, it is the sharpest color film (best MTF). Today, digital, of course, would be used to do this and Photoshop would stitch it automaticlly.



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