Capturing the Moment
Every year, WTA invites photographers to share their favorite photos for our annual contest. Photographer and avid hiker Michael Moore shared this shot at Colchuck Lake during last year's contest.
Michael Moore started hiking in 1965 and he’s never stopped.
Michael, who lives in Bellevue, is a member of The Breakfast Club, an informal group of 15 to 20 hikers who take weekly hikes together. Usually about six to 10 hikers show up on any given week. And, naturally, given the club’s name, the group follows each hike with breakfast.
Paul Gillespie, Jim Hogue and Steve Preston look up toward Dragontail Peak during a day hike. Photo by Michael Moore.
When Michael took this photo, he was on the club’s yearly multiday field trip. On the trip, members of the club “camp” at a local motel and then enjoy a variety of day hikes. For this trip, they were staying in Leavenworth. One of their hikes was up to Colchuck Lake.
“I could see my friends Paul, Jim and Steve looking intently up at Dragontail Peak above Colchuck Lake. I wanted to capture a moment in time when they shared a common focus on a distant place,” Michael says.
Michael likes to carry his camera using Optechs (a quick release that attaches to the straps on his pack). So when he saw this moment, he was able to quickly grab his camera and capture this great shot.
Michael was originally trained as a photographer in the 1970s and worked briefly as a commercial photographer. He then became an architect, where he used his photography to support his career.
In 2004, he retired and has had time to reconnect with his photography again, documenting his travels and his time on trails.
“Trails are our portals of entry to experiences we would not otherwise be able to have—of beauty, solitude, camaraderie and connection to the primeval places that we evolved to inhabit,” he says.
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