Kings Creek winding through a wildflower meadow below Reading Peak under heavy storm cloud, Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Steel Clouds

Kings Creek Meadow, Lassen Volcanic National Park, California

This was meant to be a scouting drive, but those steel-coloured clouds were not going to wait for a better-planned day. The composition needed the camera low and close to the bend, which meant standing in snowmelt at 14mm — cold enough that I stopped feeling my feet. Six stops of ND took it to a tenth of a second: enough to smooth the current without erasing it.

Nikon Z 7_2 · NIKKOR Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S · 14mm · f/11 · 1/10 · ISO 31

June 29, 2026

Back to Lassen Volcanic

More from Lassen Volcanic

Black and white view across the crater rim of Cinder Cone, its cinder slopes curving away, Lassen Volcanic National Park.A lone pine on the oxidised orange and black ash of the Painted Dunes at sunset, Lassen Volcanic National Park.Full moon rising over Sunrise Peak at twilight, seen from the cinder slopes of Cinder Cone, Lassen Volcanic National Park.Full moon beside alpenglow on Lassen Peak, reflected in the still water of Manzanita Lake, Lassen Volcanic National Park.Turquoise and milky-white hydrothermal pools and a dark mud pot in the crust at Bumpass Hell, Lassen Volcanic National Park.Sunrise light on Manzanita Lake seen through pine trunks from the campground, Lassen Volcanic National Park.