Whenever I travel I try to find the best places to go take some photos. This usually leads to an article like “10 Great Landscape Photography Spots in Bend” which features a list of ten spots where everyone goes to try to take the same photo they’ve seen on Instagram.

I usually try to avoid that and instead try to find different compositions or different spots entirely so that I’m actually taking a photo that I like as opposed to something that I saw and am trying to recreate. Sometimes, however, the best spots are the best for a reason and that’s the case with Sparks Lake. My brother and I bounced along the dirt road to the parking area in the dark and found the path that leads along the lake. With the dry winter, the water was really low but in the early morning it was still perfectly calm with a slight mist gathering on the surface.

Some wildfire smoke had blown in from eastern Washington overnight but as the sun rose it still lit up some isolated spots on the slopes of South Sister. I walked all around the slopes of the lake finding different compositions with the trees and mountain arranged different ways. It was pretty difficult to take a bad photo, though. This lake is one of the most stunningly beautiful places I’ve ever been.