Routeburn's First Fall

I went walking along the Routeburn Track (Fiordland, New Zealand) and was lucky enough to have witnessed the first snow fall of the season. The scene around me looked like something out of Narnia. This may seem somewhat mundane and boring to my northern counterparts, but, because I live in Australia, seeing snow fall is a big deal.

Unfortunately, I did not have the correct hiking gear for the weather and so I turned around and started walking back to the beginning of the track. On my way down, I encountered some of the most beautifully-filtered light I have ever seen.

I made this photograph just before the light show finished in a gorgeous little section which had a bit of a clearing that I thought would help give me depth to the scene.

Having used a very small aperture to aid in slight diffraction softening, coupled with careful luminance processing has helped with the vivid greens and reds, as well as subtle dodging and burning to bring out all I could from what some might consider a rather bland scene.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM
5s f/22.0 at 37.0mm iso100