Lower Hamilton Lake in a bowl of polished granite on the High Sierra Trail, Sequoia National Park, under building cloud.

Lower Hamilton

Hamilton Lakes, Sequoia National Park, California

Twenty past twelve is the hour most landscape photographers are asleep or eating, and usually they are right. Moving cloud saved it — every few minutes the sun went behind, the granite stopped blowing out and the pool turned from glare to green. I bracketed and waited for those windows. The rock handles the composition on its own here: the trail climbs in the same lines the water falls.

Nikon Z 7_2 · NIKKOR Z 24-120mm f/4 S · 24mm · f/11 · 1/250 · ISO 50

July 15, 2026

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