View From A Windy Road

by Az Jackson

Title

View From A Windy Road

Artist

Az Jackson

Medium

Photograph

Description

Imposing, refreshing and just beautiful. America is truly blessed with some amazing scenery and the White Peak Mountains near the California/Nevada border are definitely something to be cherished.

-- Artist Notes --

On my first real tour of the USA I had given myself a very tight shooting schedule with 4x2hr photoshoots (sunrise, daytime, sunset & night time) in different locations every day for 2 weeks in order to take full advantage of my time there and as a result I found myself always rushing from one location to the next (all within the speed limits of course). After 7 days of shooting in Las Vegas and surrounds I hired a car to drive up to San Francisco to spend a few days before heading to New York.

Being fully aware of my physical limitations I noticed that I was running behind schedule by a few hours because of an earlier delay where I got lost and ran out of petrol due to the lack of gas stations in Utah (that was the one thing I didn't plan on), so I had to make up some time if I wanted to complete my mission.

I originally gave myself 10 hours (it said 7.5hrs on the map) to drive to Yosemite National Park to arrive in time to capture the sunset but I found myself with only 8hrs so I had to make an executive decision... Do I stay another night in Vegas and miss a day of shooting or do I leave right now. I know that if I stayed I'd be forever questioning my integrity so I high tailed it out of there full of confidence that I would make it there in time comfortable in the knowledge that I always stick to my word.

There were so many views like this along my 8 hour road trip and I remember in my first few hours of driving I had to keep telling myself that there was gold at the end of the rainbow but I won't get to it if I stop, even just for one photo. I can be pretty disciplined when I need to be but then about 6 hours in, at the end of this long, long stretch of highway (I was actually making good time) I finally gave in. Despite only capturing about 3 shots of these beautiful mountains before taking off again, to this day I still get a sense of wonderment and awe whenever I recall these imposing figures of nature. In hind sight I could have stayed in Vegas and I still would have fulfilled my mission, but I would never have experienced this amazing scene quite the same, so I named it 'View From A Windy Road'.

Incidentally I ended up making it to Yosemite right in the last 5 minutes of the colorful part of the sunset but only got a handful of amateur looking shots as Tioga Pass was closed due to heavy snow fall. Solution... I spent the rest of the night looking for the entrance on the other side of Yosemite National Park so I could get all set up for to capture the sunrise over half dome. I got the all the shots I needed but... man, was I tired.

Uploaded

July 27th, 2019

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