Category Archives: Photographs: Owens Valley

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Buttermilk Range, Morning

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Buttermilk Range, Morning
Buttermilk Range, Morning

Buttermilk Range, Morning. Near Bishop, California. October 15, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early morning light strikes a ridge in the Buttermilk Range, with the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada in the background.

While in the eastern Sierra last week to photograph aspen color again, I detoured away from the trees at sunrise one morning to photograph the first light striking these hills in the Buttermilk Range above Bishop, California, with a steep section of the Sierra’s east escarpment beyond. The light in this area is often spectacular in the early morning, but it can be especially so when there are some clouds in the sky as was the case on this morning. While it was almost completely clear to the west over the Sierra crest, the sky to the east held some broken clouds which cast alternating patterns of light and shadow across the landscape. Here, while the light on the foreground rocky ridge was very intense and saturated, some haze muted the more distant ridge and the shadow from those clouds slightly obscured the lower slopes.

The Buttermilks are yet another example of the range to subjects to be found in the eastern Sierra. Sometimes I head to these mountains with a plan of shooting a particular subject or even a particular place, but this doesn’t always work out. The weather may change or my schedule may change. Fortunately, if the original subject doesn’t work, there are almost always other choices! This small range tucked up against the Sierra above Bishop – like many other similar places along the “east side” – contains a wealth of photographic subjects to explore.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Owens Valley

Sierra Wave Clouds Above Owens Valley, Dawn

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Sierra Wave Clouds Above Owens Valley, Dawn
Sierra Wave Clouds Above Owens Valley, Dawn

Sierra Wave Clouds Above Owens Valley, Dawn. Owens Valley, California. October 16, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sierra wave clouds building at dawn are reflected in the waters of an Owens Valley lake.

On this morning I was up well before dawn – I checked out of my motel in Bishop, California and was on the road while it was still dark, with a semi-plan of photographing aspen trees around dawn up in the northern portion of the June Lakes Loop. As I headed north out of Bishop and through Round Valley, the very first light arrived and I saw the dim outlines of Sierra wave clouds forming over and just east of the crest. Now, this was an interesting development!

As I continued north and the light increased, the clouds began to interest me more than the possibility of photographing more aspens – I could do that later, but such clouds are unpredictable and transitory. I could see that subtle color was beginning to appear along the edges of the clouds even though it was not yet sunrise, and I decided that I needed to find some landscape feature – almost any would do! – that could serve as a foil to these clouds so that I could photograph them as they began to pick up sunrise color.

A week earlier I had photographed at some small lakes out in Owens Valley, and it occurred to me that if I could get there in time that they might reflect the clouds nicely, though I was a bit concerned about how the lake and the mountains and the clouds would actually align. But not having any better ideas and having very little time, I decided to make the lake my goal and without much further thought took the turnoff, parked my car near the largest lake, grabbed my gear, and headed across the sage brush landscape to the shore of the lake. My initial thought that I might be able to include the Sierra range in the image with the clouds clearly wasn’t going to work due to their relative positions, so I circled a bit further around the shore of the lake and instead composed a scene that excluded all but the tiniest bit of the peaks of the Sierra.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Desert Pond and Sierra Nevada Dawn

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Desert Pond and Sierra Nevada Dawn
Morning mist rises above a high desert pond reflecting the lower slopes of the eastern Sierra Nevada near McGee Creek.

Desert Pond and Sierra Nevada Dawn. Owens Valley, California. October 9, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning mist rises above a high desert pond reflecting the lower slopes of the eastern Sierra Nevada near McGee Creek.

On the second morning of my first fall color to the eastern Sierra this autumn, having been less than astonished by this year’s color so far, I decided to head instead out into Owens Valley to shoot back toward the mountains and to shoot some subject in Owens Valley itself. I started at this little lake a few miles east of highway 395, where great reflections of the range lit by morning sun area often seen. This photograph looks across the small lake towards McGee Creek Canyon. (McGee Creek isn’t a bad place to look for aspen color…)

I arrived here before sunrise and was set up and ready to go before the first light hit the peaks in the area of Mt. McGee and Mt. Morgan. As I stood (freezing!) by the shore of this small lake, waiting for the light that I knew was coming, a truck came up the lonely road to this place, passed the pond, made a u-turn, and slowed down by my vehicle, which was parked along the main road. My first thoughts were “this is either another photographer or someone who is checking out my car… for purposes I don’t want to think about.” However the vehicle kept going. A few moments later I discovered that this was a photographer, and he and his dog took up a position along the far shoreline. A few days later I was looking through an online landscape photography forum and I came across a photograph that looked like it had been shot from about that photographer’s position, and in which the conditions looked darn near identical to what I saw that morning. I contacted the photographer and found out that, indeed, he was the person I had seen that morning. (If you wonder why we didn’t touch base on the scene… a) we were both busy shooting the entire time, b) we were on opposites sides of the lake, and c) even though I yelled a greeting he didn’t hear.)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Owens Valley

Ranch and Morning Fog, Owens Valley

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Ranch and Morning Fog, Owens Valley
Ranch and Morning Fog, Owens Valley

Ranch and Morning Fog, Owens Valley. Owens Valley, California. October 9, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

As is often the case, there is a story behind this photograph – an image that I think is fairly atypical of my work, at least as to the subject.

A year ago, almost to the day, I was also in the eastern Sierra to photograph aspens. And on that day I got up very early at my lodging in Mammoth and headed out before sunrise, which it was still dark actually, without a fixed idea of where or what I was going to photograph. I reached highway 395 and headed south, with a vague idea of heading up one of the promising canyons such as that of McGee or perhaps Rock Creek. But very soon I saw fog out in Owens Valley above Crowley Lake and I started thinking of instead heading away from the Sierra and out into that Valley. I ended up at a small pond from which I photographed the light from the rising sun as it hit the eastern slopes of the Sierra.

That show was over fairly quickly, so I decided to explore a bit. I had noticed mist and fog in various places in the surrounding area. Some of it seemed to come from small hot springs while in other places it seemed to extensive for that. I picked, more or less randomly, some gravel roads that headed toward the foggy areas and ended up on Hot Creek, where I made several photographs of and through the fog rising from the water.

Fast forward to this year. The first day of aspen shooting was productive, but the colors were overall not really as spectacular as I had hoped. If the intended subject “isn’t happening,” I’ll often change course and look for something else. So, once again I woke up without an aspen photography plan, but with two other vague ideas in mind. One was to go up to Minaret Summit and photograph the first light on the Minarets and Ritter and Banner Peaks. The other was to drive south again on 395 to see what would happen. When I got in my car to head out I still literally did not know where I would go. I sat in the car a moment and then, for reasons that I can’t recall, picked the 395 option. (Later I realized that the other option could have been productive, too.) I headed south on 395 and was astonished to see – again! – the fog over Crowley and the mist rising out in Owens Valley. So I went to my little lake to shoot there first and then headed out to where I had shot Hot Creek last year, but this time I kept going. At one point I passed this small range while heading out but couldn’t see a shot. Later on my return trip I passed it again, and this time I saw the stock grazing in the frozen meadow next to this small creek, with mist and fog rising everywhere. I stopped.

(By the way, this is a color photograph…)

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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