Instant to instant, the world changes, never to be precisely repeated. A nature photographer's job is to pick just the right moment when everything comes together in a moment of grace.

I hiked to Blue Lake, near Rainy Pass in Washington's North Cascades, in late summer. The day didn't bring spectacular light for "big landscapes," but a sensitive photographer really doesn't need to show the whole setting.

What attracted me was the wonderful blue-green color of this alpine lake, which was surrounded by talus slopes and forests of Mountain Hemlock and Alpine Larch. When the wind stirred the lake's surface with tiny ripples, I knew I had a picture--especially combined with the stones on the lake's bottom.

Lee Rentz