Trees and Cliff, Morning. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. September 16. 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Morning light spills over a high ridge to back light trees near Steelhead Lake.
This photograph was made from a point perhaps ten feet (or less!) from my bivy sack. We were camped at out-of-the-way Steelhead Lake, up above McGee Canyon and off the main trail to McGee Lakes and McGee Pass. While I had looked up McGee Canyon from the trailhead before – almost every year while photographing aspens, in fact – this was the first time that I had backpacked up this route and had a chance to actually explore the area. We ended up staying at this lake for two nights, providing time to do a bit of exploration and to see certain subjects that I might have missed with a shorter visit.
I had seen and photographed (though in a different way) this little clump of lakeside trees the morning before, but after thinking about them a bit more I felt that I’d like to shoot them again the next morning. The light at this lake is a bit tricky in that there is a very high ridge to the south and east that blocks the light until quite late in the morning. No morning golden hour shots at this lake! The ridge holds two of the four “railroad baron” peaks that surround Pioneer Basin – Crocker and Stanford. (The other two are Hopkins and Huntington.) A few years ago I had investigated Pioneer Basin on a separate trip and had stood on top of this very ridge and looked down towards this year’s camp. In any case, I had an idea to shoot the trees against backlight, and almost as soon as the sun appeared above this ridge I went to work. I had to shoot essentially straight into the sun in order to get the glowing atmosphere in the canyon beyond the first ridge, and even with a long focal length I was barely able to keep my hand out of the frame as I shaded to front of the lens.
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.
Hi David: I did see your comment and I posted a “thank you” note – it must have vaporized into cyber space! Anyway, here is a copy of that message:
Thank you, David. You describe exactly what I was thinking as I photographed this subject. I love and often photograph the trees with backlight that creates this sort of “vivid” quality that you noticed, and I also love the atmospheric effects of backlit haze and mist – so I knew that I had to make an early morning photograph of these elements. I’m very glad to hear that what I saw came through to you!
Thanks!
Dan
This is really a beauty. I made a comment several days ago, but I guess you didn’t get it. I like the great light on the foreground and the softness of the backdrop.