National Geographic
Editors' Spotlight
Top Shot: Missing The Water
"Top Shot features the photo with the most votes from the previous day’s Daily Dozen. The Daily Dozen is 12 photos chosen by the Your Shot editors each day from thousands of recent uploads. Our community has the chance to vote for their favorite from the selection." -National Geographic
It was Friday at noon and all I knew was that I was going to go camping that day. I didn’t really care where it was, it just had to be somewhere completely new. It's more of a habit at this point so every weekend has been progressively getting harder. An annoying sense of panic started to build because I only had 3 hours left to decide before I would leave for my trip. It was lunchtime so I was eating, looking at google maps on my phone and then I found it, Jones Lake. It’s located right between Chilliwack and Hope in Canada BC. After work, I headed towards the unknown on another adventure.
The lighting was perfect and the setting was a synergistic mix of chaos and beauty. Calk writings on the rocks blaming Global Warming for the dam being temporarily drained only added to the surreal feeling of the place. Standing on the shore, an excited nervousness set in knowing that I was in the perfect place at the perfect time.
The worst part was my battery in my camera was dying, I didn't think to charge it on the way up; I didn't think I needed to. I had recently bought a Sony A7r and it drains batteries fast. It didn't seem to matter that much at the time. I had taken all the pictures I wanted, my battery light was flashing but I didn't care, I was done. I headed back to my truck draining the last of my batteries scanning over all of the pictures in my viewfinder when I remembered shooting portraits not too long ago. In a panic checked my camera settings to realize my aperture was wide open the whole time. None of the pictures that I just took would look good on anything larger than a 3 inch screen.
I ran back, set my camera settings properly this time and took only two more pictures. This is a panorama of those two pictures. Then my battery completely died.
I am extremely grateful to be chosen for Nationals Geographic Daily Dozen. Considering the caliber of the competition, it was something that I never thought I would ever have a chance at winning. I'm now officially published by National Geographic. It was also voted Top Shot and featured by National Geographic. Click on the link to see.