A Familiar Friend
Whenever I get a new camera, I spend a few weeks getting oriented to the unfamiliar controls and system before embarking on any challenging shoots. As I go through this orientation, I like to revisit sites that I know as good trial grounds.
One of those places is Great Falls, which is on the Washington, DC / Virginia border. The falls are a great place for some spectacular long exposure photography. And most nights, the sky will give some nice pastel colors to reward a trip to the falls.
I have made a number of images at Great Falls before, but this one is very different. First, it was taken with a different camera system than the others. Second, my other images have had spectacular sunsets which made the process very easy - but this time the sun didn't cooperate. I had to do a lot of work to pull the colors out of the sky while preserving the detail in the rocks. Thankfully, the dynamic range of the D850 made this easier than I expected.
It may not be the most spectacular sunset, but those don't happen every day. It's important to capture the world as it exists, and I think this image does a great job of depicting the world as it was on that night.