Purple Majesty

There are mornings in the Wasatch when the whole range seems to be participating in the same quiet ceremony. The first light climbs up the face of the high peaks, the meadows below remain cool and shadowed, and the wildflowers hold perfectly still in air that hasn't yet begun to move. This was one of those mornings. I'd climbed up into Albion Basin in the dark, set up before the horizon started to glow, and waited.

The bloom that year was extraordinary. Sunflowers — mule's ear, technically — had taken over the hillside in a sweep of yellow so saturated it looked almost artificial. Cutting through that gold were the blue-violet spires of lupine and the cream of mountain bistort, creating a color trio that felt custom-designed for a landscape image. When the sun finally reached the upper ridge and set the bare rock glowing, I had my composition.

I framed vertically to give the meadow room to breathe, letting the eye travel up through the flowers, across the green slope, and into the lit peaks beyond. The title came later, when I was processing the file and thinking about the sovereignty of that purple lupine standing straight up against a sea of yellow. Purple is the color of royalty for good reason — it holds its own, and it commands attention.

Purple Majesty honors the alpine wildflower bloom at its absolute peak, where lupine rises like royalty among the gold, and the mountains themselves stand in reverent attendance.