Photo of The Day by Matt Purciel

Matt Purciel was on a photography expedition with another photographer in the Pacific Northwest when he took this photo of Mt. St. Helens in Washington. They had been on the road for a few days and they decided to check out the area around the infamous volcano. Purciel describes the good fortune that brought him to this spot and its bonanza of wildflowers, “A ranger recommended taking the Johnson ridge trail down into the valley floor. In back of my mind I wondered if he was sending us on a wild goose chase, down we went, on the side of a 500ft cliff, sending us into the pit of doom. But he turned out to be quite right discovering fields of lupine and paintbrush. It’s quite awe inspiring the massive amount of new life taking over the lifeless devastation. Quite incredible.” Matt Purciel sent this photo to the Wildflowers Assignment which is now open for submissions. Matt Purciel has been a Photo Of The Day winner before and he’s submitted an impressive collection of images to the OP Galeries. You can see his OP Galleries page here.

I select a Photo Of The Day every day. I choose the images from the various OP galleries including Assignments, Your Favorite Places and all of the OP Contests. Also, for each issue of the magazine I go through the Assignments galleries and choose a few to be featured in The Best Of Assignments in print and I select a weekly winner to be featured on the OP home page. To get your photos into the running all you have to do is submit them.