Rattlesnake Mountain

Been away from the PNWNP site for long while. Good to see everyone doing such good work.

This was taken a week ago during a quick trip to the Tri-Cities. Stopped along the road inside the Hanford Reservation. Rattlesnake Mountain is part of the Hanford Reach National Monument in eastern Washington; the foreground is on the resevation. I thought about doing a pano crop, but wanted to emphasis the big, blue sky. Any thoughts on your preferences for cropping.

Canon 20D, 24-70mm set at 30mm, ISO 100, f6.3, 1/125 sec, polarizer, handheld (after all the stop along the road was probably illegal and a breach of Homeland Security, no time to be setting up a tripod!)

Easily my favorite national security breach! This tells so much about the place.....lovely cloudscape, wonderful saturated blue sky. Post again!

Come on folks, this image deserves another comment or two.....like, for example, how many of us have been out in the open places to the east, and wanted to bring home an image that told how fierce the sun and heat were, and known that we'd get nothing but harsh blasted out colors for our trouble? Joe has told that story, and set it off with blue sky and cloud and shadow so it was interesting to view. Now, somebody, either paise this image, or tell me I'm full of it. And even if I am, Joe, keep posting.

Thanks Eric. I received quite a few comments over in the Earth, Sea & Sky forum, enough anyway to get a sense of what other photographers think. This group, with a bit more experience in local conditions, may add to what I've already heard. I joined the group in 2003 and posted a fair bit in 2004 & early 2005, but got busy with other stuff and stopped posting so much (most my previous posts were with the old format, when the new format came, it reset my numbers). I noticed with my old posts, that my east of the mountains shots often solicited few comments, so this isn't new. Anyway, I'll try to post a bit more often. Thanks for the encouraging words.