Mount Tom, Late Afternoon Light in Round Valley. Owens Valley, California. October 9, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Mount Tom rises above Round Valley as afternoon autumn light falls on trees and pastures.
I drive past this spot every time I pass through the Bishop area in the eastern Sierra. Descending toward Bishop, Highway 395 passes through Round Valley, and I am always intrigued by the rangeland in this area, the trees that grow in the pastures, and the steep eastern slopes of the Sierra beyond. I have an image of these trees with fall colors backed by the lower slopes of the mountains… but that is a photograph that so far only exists in my mind! At some point I want to find time to really photograph this spot, but in the meantime I often stop and occasionally explore here a bit as I pass through.
My early October visit was a bit too early for real fall color in Round Valley, though a few trees were starting to turn here and there. As I drove north from the Bishop area I wasn’t expecting really spectacular color, but as I started up the grade that leaves this valley I caught a glimpse of warm light on these trees as the sun was about to drop behind the ridge. I didn’t quite have time to pull over and turn around so I continued up the road a distance and finally located a turn-around, reversed direction, and headed back down to the spot where I had seen this light. It was almost gone when I arrived, even though it had only been a few minutes. Using the lens that was already on the camera I quickly set up my tripod and managed a few exposures as the light left the groves of trees in the foreground.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
G Dan Mitchell Photography
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I agree, Cynthia. I am not always good at tree identification, but I wonder if some of those trees, at least, might be cottonwoods. In any case, I certainly have thought about making my way out there a bit later than the time of my aspen shoots, with the plan being to photograph the trees in Owens Valley and similar areas. I hear that this might be near the end of October or around the start of November in a typical year. (I wonder if the timing might be similar to that for Yosemite Valley?)
Dan
Hi Dan, I think Round Valley is incredibly rich with potential and that is where I took the image I mentioned a few posts back that I was so pleased with. And when I show it to people, they always say WOW! There was a tree in a small group that was full of fall color leaves on Thanksgiving Day. I don’t know what kind of tree it was other than it was not an aspen. There were some other trees in the group with it that had no leaves and I think were probably aspens. And Mount Tom was directly in the background. Next year you might want to consider a trip there around Thanksgiving to see the possibility. I don’t have the time or money to really explore the country but in terms of what I can get to, the area around Bishop is my favorite place to photograph. I’d love to meet some locals who would let me photograph on their land. I hope I can go back in the spring and again in the fall next year. I haven’t even begun to explore there!
Hi Dan, excellent photograph.
I was wondering if you used any kind of filters (ND gradual, polarizer). And if so which brand do you use (or prefer), thank you.
Hi, Adrian. Thanks for your message.
I did not use any filters for this photograph. Instead I made most of the necessary adjustments in post, some of which essentially simulated what I might have done with graduated neutral density filters on the camera – but I don’t use those filters, preferring the control I get by doing these things in post. Some of the adjustments that I made in order to create an image that more closely corresponds to what I recall of the scene included color correction to somewhat reduce to very blue quality of the haze. Because the atmosphere was mostly lit by diffused light from the blue sky, the blue coloration that you might not notice in person became strong in the photographic image. I often – but not always – make this sort of adjustment using a curve layer in photoshop and then using the gray eyedropper to select something in the scene that seems like it should be close to neutral gray and then tweaking a bit and adjusting the opacity of this layer. In this one I also “painted in” parts of the layer mask to be more or less opaque. In addition, I made some curve adjustments to the pasture and trees. In other original there was a bigger difference between the areas in direct sun and some that were shaded a bit more.
I do sometimes use filters in the field, and I almost always carry a few with me. I carry circular polarizers and one very dark 9-stop neutral density filter which lets me make very long exposures even in full sun. I’m pretty bad about recalling precisely which brand and model I use when it comes to things like filters. I tend to do my research, buy the product, and then forget the research! I know that among my filters are some from B+W and Hoya.
Dan