Tag Archives: Mountain

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: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Trees, Conway Summit, Fall

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Aspen Trees, Conway Summit, Fall
Aspen Trees, Conway Summit, Fall

Aspen Trees, Conway Summit, Fall. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. October 16, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Aspen trees in peak color at Conway Summit along highway 395 in the eastern Sierra Nevada.

I isolated this small bit of near-psychedelic color from the extensive aspen groves at Conway Summit, along highway 395 just north of Lee Vining and Mono Lake along the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada range. When I visited the grove this past weekend the colors seemed to be essentially at their peak with alternating rows of red, orange, gold, and even a few lime green trees marching up the slopes toward the Dunderberg area high above.

If you hit it at the right moment, the aspen color at this location is second to none, and a bonus for many is that it is so accessible, being right alongside the highway. Brilliant colors can occur on both sides of the summit, but those on the north side seem to me to be more varied, and it is a bit easier and safer to find a place to stop alongside the road.

The lighting during my visit was “interesting” – which often means good but with some challenges. From my point of view, the best light at Conway Summit, at least when it comes to photographing aspen color, occurs fairly late in the afternoon when the sun gets low in the sky and can backlight the groves of trees. However, because of the backdrop of Sierra Nevada peaks the interval of good light can be short – and it is distinctly before actual sunset. The “interesting” element during this visit was that clouds were building over the crest. This produces some spectacular sky conditions at times, but it also cast shadows across the trees that dulled the colors and lowered contrast. Now a bit of this can be a good thing, and too much backlight can be a bit difficult to handle. By scoping out perhaps three of four possible compositions from my position, I could wait until the “good light” hit one or another of them, swing the camera around in that direction, and work quickly while the light lasted. For this detail shot of a colorful section of the aspen groves just below my position I had what can perhaps be the very best light for such subjects – a bit of directional light from behind filtered through clouds.

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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Commentary, Locations

Aspen Update 10/17/11

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I’m back from my second trip to the eastern Sierra in as many weeks, and I’d like to share a bit of what I observed.

A week ago I visited and/or photographed several areas including Bishop Creek, Rock Creek, McGee Creek, a few areas around Mammoth Lakes, and Lee Vining Canyon. I also got reports from others who were there at the same time, and their reports tended to be in line with what I saw that week, namely that the trees that had been turning were interrupted by the early winter-like storm, dropping leaves or turning brown/black, and that lower elevation trees were mostly still green. At that time my hunch was that not much more was going to happen up high, but that the many green trees would provide color over the following couple of weeks.

This week I visited the portion of Bishop Creek in the South Lake drainage, areas on and near Glacier Lodge Road, the north section of the June Lakes loop near Parker Lake, Lee Vining Canyon, and Conway Summit. This visit confirmed some of my expectations from the previous week but also offered some surprises.

  • The thought that the loss of higher elevation leaves might mean that they were done for the season turned out to be not quite correct. This week I saw a surprising amount of color up high. In many places along the eastern escarpment I saw groves of brightly color trees marching right up many ridges.
  • Although I did not return to North Lake, I even heard reports that it had improved. (Though the person sharing the report pointed out that this would likely not be an exceptional year there.)
  • The color of the middle and lower level trees seems to be progressing very quickly. I was expecting middle elevation trees to turn by this week, but I was surprised by how low the color extended. If forced to make a prediction, I might guess that the season is going to run its course a bit faster than usual this year. (Stable weather this week – especially if the winds are light – might sustain things a bit longer.)

I feel like every aspen season has its own “personality” – whether it starts gradually or suddenly, early or a bit later, whether it is interrupted by weather events, and how long it lasts. The personality of this year’s eastern Sierra aspen season seems to include the storm that interrupted the early color up high, followed by a very rapid development of color about a week later.

I need to offer a few disclaimers. First, I only visited a small percentage of the places where aspen color may be found in a typical season. Second, while I can make some guesses about how things will evolve going forward, no one really knows. Third, if you are going to head out there to photograph the aspens this season, I urge you to check others sources of information on the conditions before you go.

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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