Photograph: Ellery Lake - Eastern Border of Yosemite National Park, Sierra Nevada

Ellery Lake

Posted on 21 March 2011

Ellery Lake

Early season morning light on Ellery Lake near Tioga Pass.

I made this photograph on the same early-season morning on which I made the vertical format photograph of the same scene that I recently posted. Ellery Lake is alongside highway 120, the “Tioga Pass Road,” just beyond the eastern boundary of the park and the Sierra crest. To be completely forthcoming, I made this photograph from the side of the road! (The many individuals who know this area well, and who have probably stopped to look at the same scene, already knew that…)

To briefly recap, the road here curves around the upper end of the lake above this small bay. Looking across the bay, the rocky edges of the lake are visible along with the steep talus slopes ascending to the peaks around Mt. Dana beyond. The spot has a natural beauty in terms of the forms of the landscape, but I think it is difficult to photograph as a whole – the light is the tricky thing. The earliest morning light is block by high peaks to the east and the late afternoon light goes quickly from sun to shade as the sun drops below ridges behind the camera position, and this light can be fairly flat since it comes from directly behind. This photograph was made in the morning, but not close to sunrise at all – it was two or three hours later. Even here the scene isn’t without technical challenges, especially from the dynamic range that spans from the shadows behind backlit rocks and trees to the very bright snow fields at upper right.

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