Call of the Raven (formerly Nature's Special Effects)

For anyone interested in using this image, it is now available through Getty Images.

Thank you for all the invitations to groups, however I will no longer be adding this image to any new group. If you like, you are welcome to invite one (or both!) of the alternate versions to your group. They can be found here and here.

Taken in the Mt. Baker - Snoqualmie National Forest near Greenwater, Washington on 14NOV05.

Thank you one and all for all the amazing comments! I am quite proud of this shot, and now that I have a few minutes, I thought I might share the story behind it. This is one of those images that truly involved being in the right place at the right time.

First off, for those that were wondering, the post production on this was very minimal. I cropped the image slightly, pushed the contrast up a touch and brought the saturation up a little. That's it - Nature did the rest.

Now then, story time... Yesterday I was out for a bit of drive on SR410 (the road that heads out of the town of Enumclaw towards Mt. Rainier National Park. I decided to head up on a forest Service road just past the small town of Greenwater. There was some fresh snow on the ground, and as I headed deeper into the forest the snow began to pile up. Since this was an unplanned trip, I was alone and I haven't put the tire chains and other winter gear in the car yet, so I was paying close attention to the road condition as I wasn't too keen on getting stuck. There was a point where I was about to turn around, but something made me keep going.

Finally I reached a point where the car was sliding around a bit and the snow was getting deeper and deeper. It was also an area where the road was wide enough to turn around. With a bit of back and forth, I managed to get the car turned and pointed down hill. I then decided that I might as well take a bit of a walk since I was there. I turned off the car and got out into the peacefulness of the late autumn/ early winter forest.

At this point, the sun was behind the clouds so I just wandered about for a bit. At one point I had my back to this scene when I heard the confident call of a raven somewhere to my right. I turned slightly to see if I could catch a glimpse of the bird. It was at that moment that the sun emerged from behind the clouds and appeared through the branches. I turned fully to look towards the emerging sun when all of a sudden the mist crept into the scene and all the pieces fell together. I stood awestruck for what seemed like a very long time before remembering the camera in my hand.

I shot in the neighborhood of 30 frames before the mist cleared, shortly followed by the sun slipping back behind the clouds. For me, this was one of those perfect moments. One of those moments that reminds me how great it is to be alive and how amazing this place we call home is. Life is good.

Once again, thank you everyone for your comments - they really mean a lot to me.

-Rob A. Johnston (aka Walkabout Wolf)

P.S. This seems to be the most interesting photo tagged "snow" on Flickr!

A thanks to all who have commented and favorited since I last thanked folks. This image truly has a life of it's own. Also a big thanks to Coyrooster for the title change suggestion. It's interesting that in the past few months it seems that ravens have become a part of me. Perhaps looking back, this interest in ravens (and other Corvids as well) started with this image. As a result, I'm taking the suggestion and renaming the image.

Thanks again everyone, and I'm always happy to answer any questions you may have about this, or any other of my images.

Be sure and check out some of my other stuff while you're here!

This image has been published in Tomorrow magazine.

23 November 2008 - This image just topped 100,000 views! Wow - thanks for the comments and favorites, everyone!

Thank you for all the invitations to groups, however I will no longer be adding this image to any new group. If you like, you are welcome to invite one (or both!) of the alternate versions to your group. They can be found here and here.