Last week, we published a photo from the American Falls Reservoir.  This week, we’ve got another from the exact same place.  What a difference a week makes.  We’ll let you take a good look at both photos for yourself.

Last week, we found a great location to take a landscape photo of the lake known as the American Falls reservoir.  We took a beautiful photograph of the water full of floating ice at the tail end of sunset.  So you can see the “before” image, we’ve included it below.

We decided to go back and see if we could get a different shot of the icy water much earlier during sunset.  We went to the same place and a very similar composition.  What a big difference a week made in the view.

We’ve been having temperatures up in the 50’s lately.  That’s a big part of the change in what you see.  Now, check out how things changed since our first visit.

The water is entirely melted and the ice is gone.  The sunset, however, is just as beautiful as the last one was.  I even managed to capture a sunburst just before the sun slipped below the horizon.

I learned that timing can be everything with a landscape shot.  It’s not just about getting there at the right time of day.  It’s also getting there when conditions are right.  Had I been going for a photo of a lake full of ice, I would have been too late.  Had I been going for a calm lake shot the week before, I would have been too early.

Getting the right landscape photograph is all about getting the timing right.  That’s a lesson which is going to stick with me for a while.  What a difference a week makes!