Pinnacle Mountain State Park is located just northwest Little Rock, Arkansas. The park derives its name from Pinnacle Mountain, a 1,011-foot high cone-shaped peak that resides within the park’s boundaries. Pinnacle Mountain, which is part of the Ouachita Mountain range, was the first such shaped peak to be seen by early travelers as they journeyed west from eastern Arkansas. In some ways, it reminds me of the volcanic mountains of the Pacific Northwest.
I have visited Pinnacle Mountain many times over the years. It’s about a 45 minute drive from my house, and I usually get there early in the morning just as the sky is brightening. At that time of day, I am often the only person there, which makes it such a quiet, relaxing, and peaceful experience.
However, from a photographic standpoint, I find the park a very difficult and challenging place to photograph. I don’t know why, but I almost always come home with few pictures and even fewer pictures that I like. But, those rare occasions when I find something make all the frustrations worth it, and this image is one of those rare times.
Most of my pictures of Pinnacle Mountain are taken on the mountain’s west side and are usually far too similar to so many others I have seen. The problem was I could just never find a good location on the east side. So, one day, I pulled up Google Maps to do a little bit of research. That’s when I found this small fishing pond. It is on park property and is only a short walk from the main road. There are often people fishing and picnicking here, but, at 5:45 in the morning, I didn’t have to worry about that.
The weather forecasts were predicting clear skies that morning, so I was expecting and looking forward to the mountain being bathed in nice golden lighting as the sun rose above the horizon behind me. Naturally, though, as one might expect when it comes to landscape photography, things did not turn out as I expected. Rather than a mountain covered with the golden light of sunrise, I was presented with a gray, cloud-filled morning sky. Definitely not what I had in mind.
But, the clouds actually made capturing this image much easier since I did not have the extreme contrast I would have had if the sky had been clear. The clouds also kept the color temperature cooler which meant the picture would have a lot of blue tones in it that created, to me, a more peaceful and serene mood, which was really how I felt that morning.
Once I got home, I opened the file in Lightroom and did some basic processing adjustments to contrast, clarity, saturation, and a number of other settings. I then opened the image in Photoshop and cloned out a number of distracting items, such as trash that was lying on the ground because someone had been too lazy to walk a few feet to the large trash can. I also applied the tonal contrast filter in Nik’s Color Efex 4 to further bring out the various tones in the photograph.
But, I still wasn’t quite satisfied. Something still seemed to be missing, but what was it? I sat and looked at the picture for a few minutes before I finally realized what it needed. This image looked more like a scene you might find in the early fall when the temperatures are cooler, but the leaves haven’t started to change their colors. In that situation, it is not unusual to have a light fog form, especially around a body of water, like a pond. So, I again opened up Color Efex 4, applied a graduated fog filter and made some adjustments to the settings to get just the slightest hint of fog. I then used the brush tool to eliminate the fog from the foreground of the frame so it would appear the fog was just wafting through the trees that were in the background.
While many people may not like that I manipulated the image, I think it captures what I had in my mind. That, for me, is what matters.