Yosemite National Park, California

I have long wanted to hike in to Cathedral Lake and Peak near Tuolumne Meadows. I spent a couple of days at the tail end of the season camping at Tuolumne Meadows and decided to try to get a sunset shot of the peak. It involved a 2.5 hour hike in (in daylight) and a 2.5 hour hike out in the dark (!) Thank god for LED lights - cell phones work nicely for lighting trails in the dark. Next time I'll camp at the lake for a real sunset shot!

This area has been extensively photographed, so I was looking for something different. I was drawn to the far side of the lake which had a seldom photographed perspective of the lake and the peaks, a photogenic rock formation in the mid ground, beautiful reflections in the lake, and a graceful shoreline linking them. This shot exemplified the difficulty of capturing an image in low light which reflects what the eye sees. The camera sensor is less sensitive than the human eye, so significant elements of the image were underexposed. Fortunately enough detail was captured to adjust in Lightroom.