Aspen Groves, Afternoon Light. Conway Summit, California. October 16, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Late afternoon sun backlights the brilliant fall colors of aspen groves along the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada near Conway Summit.
This is one of what is likely to be a series of very gaudy and colorful photographs of autumn aspen color, much of it photographed at Conway Summit along highway 395 just north of Lee Vining and Mono Lake. Keep your sunglasses handy!
If you happen to arrive at the Conway Summit area at the right point in the fall color season, you can be treated to an astonishingly large and brilliant show of aspen color. (It isn’t a sure bet though. Some years it is not nearly as spectacular. ) This year the trees seemed to turn quite suddenly. A week earlier there had been a lot of very green trees at this elevation along the east side of the Sierra, and many of us expected that the most striking colors would not come until as much as a week later. But nature wasn’t listening, and one week after I had seen so much green, the aspens all along the eastern escarpment of the range were turning golden and many other shade, frequently all the way down to the level of Owens Valley.
After shooting in the early morning out in Owens Vally and then hiking up to Parsons Lake in the middle of the day, I finally made my way up north to Conway Summit just before what I regard as the ideal time to photograph aspen color here, namely during the last hour or so before the sun drops below the peaks of the Sierra to the west. During this period the trees are back- and side-lit in very dramatic ways. While shooting almost directly into the sun can be tricky, the backlit trees really light up. At first I was a bit concerned when I arrived since clouds over the crest threatened to end the light show early, and they actually did interfere at times. But they also broke up the light a bit and provided a combination of ever-changing light and shadow patterns. One moment the light would strike one area and I would shoot in that direction. A moment later that light was gone, but shortly it would appear in another spot – and I’d swivel the camera around and work that subject for a moment.
This little pair of groves is one that I’ve watched and photographed for several years. I like the way that it stands apart from the much larger main groves and has the plain grass and sagebrush covered hills as background. I made a series of exposures of this subject, and in this one the light crossing from left to right not only struck the colorful trees but also lit up some of the gentle ridges of the slopes beyond.
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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Thanks, David. I used to think there was a thing that might be called a “normal” aspen season, but more and more I simply think that every season is different and has its own personality. This one started out looking promising, was then interrupted by the early winter storm, seemed to be headed towards later than usual color that would mostly happen at lower elevations, and then surprised us all by going nuts perhaps a week earlier than we thought, and producing some really fine color at that point.
Dan
Dan,
Those little pockets of Aspens on the mountainside are very interesting, as are the sparse ridges receding into the background. Similar story here in the northeast this year… everything was moving quite slowly, and then the process suddenly accelerated dramatically. Overall it wasn’t an especially vibrant fall foliage season for us.