Hawkins Peak Backlit from Monitor Pass

I caught this sunset on Monitor Pass in the Eastern Sierra region of California. Highway 89 over Monitor Pass is just east of where the Sierra Nevada is crossed by Highway 4 over Ebbetts Pass or Highway 88 over Carson Pass.

This was an image I post-processed in Adobe Lightroom, then I copied the "Develop" settings into two additional exposures one stop darker and lighter. I exported the three identically-processed images from Lightroom to Photomatix in TIFF format using the Photomatix to Lightroom interface. With many previews of different HDR modes to select from, I was able to select the a natural-looking result. The interface imported the result back into Lightroom for fine tuning.

Oncoming storms can be a great time for landscape photography. The temperature dropped to 38 degrees here at sunset, and it was snowing intermittently as I captured this image. Light rays were shooting out at various angles as the clouds moved. Overnight, occasional thunder and lighting passed by. Although technically this area is considered high desert, we do get a lot of extremely photogenic weather passing by!