Here’s a photo taken in the mist on a bushwalk in the Stirling Range. Three of us had decided to walk from Bluff Knoll to Ellen’s Peak. On a Friday night after work, we climbed Bluff Knoll in the dark and bivouacked at the top. On the Saturday, clouds clung to the peaks, reducing visibility to a few metres. We were unable to see the landmarks around us through the heavy mist, and we searched for hours for the right trail to lead us onto the ridge towards Ellen’s Peak.
The first photos I ever took up Bluff Knoll were in similar conditions in May 1971, on black-and-white film. Clouds shrouded the top of the mountain and we could not see any of the panorama beyond. Bluff Knoll is renowned in Western Australia as the most likely place to experience snow in winter, although it is no certainty. Photos of the snow are inevitably taken in pretty miserable weather.
However, most promotional photos of the Stirling Range show blue skies and clear conditions, not the misty conditions I experienced in 1990. But it is worth trying your hand at photographing inclement weather, just to show what the real world can be like. Sometimes storm clouds provide the best definition of a landscape and its sky.
There was no snow for us, but through the mist we eventually got this glimpse of the Three Arrows, a trio of peaks along the ridge. I took this moody photo. It was our first opportunity to get our bearings and begin our day’s walk. We finally made it to a cave shelter halfway along the ridge and camped again, but the fruitless morning had taken a toll on one of our party and we descended to a firebreak and walked back to our vehicle.
The photo is a reminder that, as in life, photo trips do not always go to plan. When your photo plans don’t work out, have a plan B and put safety first. I wanted to see the other end of the ridge. Perhaps I would have been able to photograph angles on the Stirling Range that many people never see, but I had to let go of my plans and forgo the opportunity.
The photo is also a reminder to me of the quality of the old Olympus, by this time probably at least 15 years old. On this occasion, it accompanied me into a very humid atmosphere but it also travelled into dusty deserts, snow, rain and sandy beaches. In all that time, its only hiccup was when I once dropped a lens in a sandy cave. A piece of grit lodged in the metering system and I had to visit the camera repair shop. The Olympus put in some good service.