Autumn Foliage, Pond, Conway Summit. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. October 16, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Afternoon sunlight strikes fall foliage surrounding a small pond in the eastern Sierra Nevada at Conway Summit.
As is perhaps obvious from the photograph, the sky was not entirely unobscured when I made this series of photographs of the large aspen groves at Conway Summit in the eastern Sierra Nevada in the middle of October. The changing light was an asset in that it had the potential to highlight elements of the scene and de-emphasize others, and that it was constantly changing. But it also meant that at some points the scene was so flat as to be uninteresting. In other words, I had to stand around a lot, waiting for the light to suddenly appear, only to go away a moment later.
I had been watching this small pond, surrounded by aspens and brush and reflecting the sky, for some time. I wanted just the right side light to illuminate the trees and brush, but to also get something to happen on the more distant rolling hills. At one point beautiful light had lit up the foreground grove… but it had left the closest brush in shadow. At other points the more distant hills picked up interesting light… while the grove remained in shadow. Here I had a few moments of slightly cloud-diffused light on the grove (though I could have wished for a bit more on the trees at right) and brush, along with a beam of light picking up one of the more distant groves and the slanting ridge line in front of it.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Thanks, Wayne. Glad you got to photograph these wonderful, colorful trees this year. I have photographed the pond and a similar one hidden elsewhere among the trees in the past, though this is the first time that I made a photograph in which it figured so clearly. I can’t say if it is always there, and you might well be right that the melting snow from the recent storms could have increased its size. I’ve also done some shots that intentionally included the cattle in the past!
Dan
Great color, interesting light and composition!
I was there 3-days later than you and enjoyed photographing the last light there on the beautiful aspen groves. I saw this small pond too and didn’t remember seeing that there last year. Is it normally there every year, or is it just this year because of the recent early snow storm melt off?
There was also some cattle grazing there next to some of the groves too which was beautiful too.Love that area between Conway Summit and Bridgeport, very open and beautiful landscape.This shot captures that with a nice sense of distance and vastness.
Thanks, Richard. You have obviously shot here, too – given that you know the slightly tricky issues of finding a spot from which to shoot.
If I recall correctly, for this one I was a bit further north along the road from where I would usually stop, and fortunately the side strip was wider here – more a like a real pull-out. However, when I moved a bit further south for some other photographs I made this afternoon, I did end up stopping in some of those areas that are just barely wider than my car! (I usually hop just over the fence so that I’m on the “safe” side of the pull-out, and this also gives me a bit better angle on the subjects that lie below the road level.)
Thanks for noticing the mountains beyond Bridgeport. I liked the way that everything receded from the near scene of the pond and trees, across the intervening hills, to finally reach that distant set of ridges.
Dan
Your standing around in that emergency/bike lane paid off. Exceptional color, light and detail, even on the mountains beyond Bridgeport. One of my favorites so far from this series!
Richard