Frozen Pond and Sierra Nevada Range, Owens Valley. Long Valley Area, California. October 9, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
The snow-dusted eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada reflected in the surface of a frozen pond on the high desert of Owens Valley, California.
On a very cold early October morning this year I ended up driving out into Owens Valley toward the Owens River after I spotted some interesting morning fog while driving out of Mammoth Lakes on highway 395. Although I had started out with the intention of photographing aspens, when I saw the fog I changed my plans and decided to leave the aspen photography for later. I first drove to a small lake where I have photographed several times in the past, a lake that provides very still water at sunrise and great reflections of the peaks of the Sierra crest which were covered with the snow from a series of early season storms.
After sunrise I decided that I was finished at that lake, so I got back in the vehicle and went exploring on some gravel roads that wander around in the general area of Hot Creek and Owens River. At first I aimed for some ground fog-covered areas that I had spotted earlier, and for a section of creek where the warm water seems to frequently create interesting fog on cold mornings. I arrived at this creek, took a look around, and decided that it wasn’t quite what I wanted to photograph, so I kept driving, ending up on some roads I had not visited before. As I crossed one long flat area of rangeland I passed this mall frozen pond, drove a bit further, and then turned around to come back and photograph it with the early morning – but no longer dawn – like on the snow-covered peaks just south of Mammoth.
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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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.
Thanks, Richard. I’m not all that much of a super wide angle shooter… but some subjects just seem to call for the perspective that these lenses offer!
Dan
I always anticipate your wider-angle landscapes of the Sierra Range and this one fullfills my expectations. My next trip up there I’m going to have to search out these ponds that enhance these beautiful images.
Richard