Sunrise on Mount Laurel at Convict Lake, Eastern Sierra, near Mammoth Lakes, California
“To love beauty is to see light.”
— Victor Hugo
Shine Your Light
Page 6 of 13
Majesty Doubled
Majesty Doubled, Sierra Nevada mountains near Bishop, california
This photograph could have been called “Persistence”.
Not the persistence of mountains, not the persistence of trees, not the persistence of water and clouds.
This location is not in any Guide Book or Google Map. It’s not on anyone’s GPS tracking device. This location — the place where I was standing to make this photograph — was discovered through Persistence.
And it was not discovered by MY persistence but by my friend Steve Ornberg‘s persistence!
After a long day of mostly cloudy skies, the sun came out and we wanted to drive around and see what we could find. I hiked into a field for an hour and had a really mediocre composition of a cotton wood tree from a really bad angle. I was fed up and wanted to quit for the day.
Then good old Steve, as we were driving back to our hotel, said “Hey, I wonder what’s up this way.”
We followed a nondescript dirt road for about a hundred yards and came upon an irrigation pond that served as a perfectly positioned reflecting pond. It doubled the majesty of the Eastern Sierra mountains in the west.
Majesty Doubled!
North Lake Sunrise
Sunrise on North Lake, Eastern Sierra, Near Bishop, California
“My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.”
– Michael J. Fox
I could have become very unhappy on this trip because of a certain expectation — that the aspen leaves would have been present on the trees, creating a bright yellow band on the distant shoreline.
Instead, the leaves were gone, wiped away by a winter storm the day before.
Instead, an even more glorious show of yellow beyond my expectations appeared, reflected in the icy covering on North Lake.
Instead, I experienced and accepted this marvelous morning with great gratitude and happiness.
Transcendent Moments of Awe
Seascape on Isle Au Haut, Acadia National Park, Maine
“Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.”
~~ John Milton
With deep gratitude for the many epiphanies I encountered on this trip to Acadia.
Isle Au Haut
Isle Au Haut I, Acadia National Park
Isle Au Haut takes some work and planning to get to. It is an island off the coast of Maine, one of the southernmost parts of Acadia National Park. It is visited by taking a ferry from the town of Stonington, ME. Not everyone will have the time or the resources to visit here in their lifetime, yet it is an unspoiled reminder of what this continent looked like to the first settlers arriving from Europe.
The effort in getting to Isle Au Haut brought to mind a comment my niece Paula Potocki wrote about my published Zion National Park photograph titled “Canyon Spring”:
Breathtaking!!! Thank you for sharing your talent once again, it is an honor. Most people will never get a chance to experience the wonders that are in our world. You are able to capture and share them so that others may explore the possibilities that are all around them. You are opening their eyes with your gift
It is a blessing to me to be able to share this beauty with those who, for whatever reason, cannot or will not get to and experience these places in person. If you know someone whose day would be brighter by viewing these images, or by having something beautiful from nature portrayed on their wall, please pass this along. It is an easy way to help people have hope, take in beauty, and perhaps be inspired to travel to these sights in their imagination, or in their physical future.
Thank you for viewing my work, for helping share this work with others, and for the many kind words of appreciation you have shared back to me.
It's a Beautiful Life!
Harry H. Hitzeman Jr.
