A photographer identified on the reverse only as "Harold" stands atop a large boulder at the rocky shore of a mountain lake, his large format view camera mounted on a tripod beside him and a bag or case held in his left hand. No photographer's imprint appears on the mount. The image is an albumen cabinet card consistent in style and format with the late 1880s to early 1890s, and the outdoor setting, working posture, and field equipment suggest this was made by a companion or colleague rather than in a studio context.

Harold wears a dark sack coat, light trousers, a bow tie, and a flat-brimmed cap, and stands in profile gazing across the water rather than toward the camera. His large format camera faces the same direction, its ground glass back visible, mounted on a sturdy three-legged wooden tripod. Driftwood logs and boulders occupy the foreground, with low shrubs at left. A densely forested shoreline runs across the middle distance, and a range of softly rendered mountains fills the horizon beneath an open sky.

The reverse bears no photographer's imprint and is otherwise blank except for the name "Harold" written in green crayon or chalk in a loose, informal hand.