Monashee Mountains British Columbia, Canada "Cat skiing", that is riding this massive snow crawling machine called a caterpillar up rare and fantastic mountains to ski in the most untouched powder one has ever seen.
Sometimes I joke that we just strap cats to our boots, hence this is why ski hills need lots of groomers :P
Photographic Details: I know that the first thing many people will say is "wow is that an HDR (high dynamic range) shot?" or "did you photoshop that?" The answer is no to both. The secret here is RAW photography. Getting the most optimal exposure that covers both the highlights and the shadows in an exposure that is picked with such precision there is no room for error. In Lightroom I'm able to edit the raw file to coax out the details I want in the shadows and the flecks of light on the highlights while preserving the textures where they are needed most. This way I don't need a tripod, I can quickly snap off shot and move on my merry way knowing it will only take a minute for me to process this photo for presentation.
In addition one might wonder what created that fantastic star of a sky, shooting at F16 I employ the most aperture blades in my lens which makes bright objects shine in this wonderful pattern, sunny F16 is a rule for shots like this!
Canon 5D Mark II, 16-35mm Lens 1/160s f/16.0 ISO160 16mm