Huangshan Mountains

Pentax k-1, Pentax 150-450 lens set at 170mm, f5, 1/2500, ISO 400

The Huangshan Mountains in China are famous for their steep granite ridges, bonsai-like trees, and cloud formations. My wife and I visited these mountains mostly because I have long admired traditional Chinese landscape paintings, which often used layers of landscape such as mountain ridges to help achieve the illusion of three-dimensional depth. Many of these landscape paintings were inspired by the Huangshan Mountains. These paintings have also influenced my landscape photography. My wife and I hiked steep trails in these mountains for three days. While we were there, the lighting and cloud formations were constantly changing around the ridges as well as above and below the mountains. One morning soon after sunrise we came across this scene with layers of ridges amid an undercast.