Ok, this is an old one! It was 2007 and me and my wife were on a backpacking trip in the Alps. We started in Chamonix and decided to spend a few days there climbing, hiking and enjoying the jagged mountains before we headed to Switzerland. “Death capital of the world” – that is what people call Chamonix and it sounds quite scary for a place that holds such an immense beauty. It is a small town in a valley in the base of the highest peak in Western Europe – Mont Blanc.

Photo: Canon 40D and Canon 70-200 F4L / Iso 100, 172mm

Hiking all day really makes you tired, so after an early dinner on that day we decided to head back to the hotel and sleep. We were walking the main street filled with restaurants and shops. It was getting darker and already had my camera in my backpack. Suddenly I looked up and saw that the last light from the setting sun was hitting one of the peaks above and it looked magical. I got my camera as fast as I could and put on my Canon 70-200mm F4L that I used to carry around everywhere back than (no joke, I even climbed a few 4000m peaks with this one in the backpack). The moment lasted less than a minute – the clouds moved and the light was gone. I was so excited that I couldn’t keep my hands from shaking and the resulted photo (as nice as it is) came out a bit blurry 🙂

Moral of the story: always keep your camera close. You can never be sure when you will get a great photo opportunity!