Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Trees, Conway Summit, Fall

October 18, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 7 Comments

Aspen trees in peak color at Conway Summit along highway 395 in the eastern Sierra Nevada.

I isolated this small bit of near-psychedelic color from the extensive aspen groves at Conway Summit, along highway 395 just north of Lee Vining and Mono Lake along the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada range. When I visited the grove this past weekend the colors seemed to be essentially at their peak with alternating rows of red, orange, gold, and even a few lime green trees marching up the slopes toward the Dunderberg area high above.

If you hit it at the right moment, the aspen color at this location is second to none, and a bonus for many is that it is so accessible, being right alongside the highway. Brilliant colors can occur on both sides of the summit, but those on the north side seem to me to be more varied, and it is a bit easier and safer to find a place to stop alongside the road.

The lighting during my visit was “interesting” – which often means good but with some challenges. From my point of view, the best light at Conway Summit, at least when it comes to photographing aspen color, occurs fairly late in the afternoon when the sun gets low in the sky and can backlight the groves of trees. However, because of the backdrop of Sierra Nevada peaks the interval of good light can be short – and it is distinctly before actual sunset. The “interesting” element during this visit was that clouds were building over the crest. This produces some spectacular sky conditions at times, but it also cast shadows across the trees that dulled the colors and lowered contrast. Now a bit of this can be a good thing, and too much backlight can be a bit difficult to handle. By scoping out perhaps three of four possible compositions from my position, I could wait until the “good light” hit one or another of them, swing the camera around in that direction, and work quickly while the light lasted. For this detail shot of a colorful section of the aspen groves just below my position I had what can perhaps be the very best light for such subjects – a bit of directional light from behind filtered through clouds.

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.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts when this page is viewed on the web. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Hills and Gullies, Twenty Mule Team Canyon

October 17, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light across the shapes of hills and gullies, Twenty Mule Team Canyon, Death Valley National Park.

This is a photograph I made back in 2009 when I managed to get to Twenty Mule Team Canyon before sunrise and then continued to shoot for several hours. Though this area is very close to one of the most popular and oft-photographed locations in Death Valley National Park, it gets relatively few visitors from what I’ve seen. While it doesn’t generally present the huge and expansive vistas of some of the more famous areas, it is a great playground for those of us who enjoy the eroded and rounded landforms and the seemingly infinite variations of color and texture.

Here I tried to fill the frame completely with these shapes that have been produced by water eroding the relatively soft earth. The light was very interesting and a bit complex. Some diffused light was coming straight down from the sky, hence the bits of blue shadow in some of the gullies. At the same time, slightly diffused sunlight was directly striking the earth in a few spots. And in some of the foreground areas additional illumination was being reflected into the scene from nearby formations.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts when this page is viewed on the web. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

Commentary, Locations

Aspen Update 10/17/11

October 17, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

I’m back from my second trip to the eastern Sierra in as many weeks, and I’d like to share a bit of what I observed.

A week ago I visited and/or photographed several areas including Bishop Creek, Rock Creek, McGee Creek, a few areas around Mammoth Lakes, and Lee Vining Canyon. I also got reports from others who were there at the same time, and their reports tended to be in line with what I saw that week, namely that the trees that had been turning were interrupted by the early winter-like storm, dropping leaves or turning brown/black, and that lower elevation trees were mostly still green. At that time my hunch was that not much more was going to happen up high, but that the many green trees would provide color over the following couple of weeks.

This week I visited the portion of Bishop Creek in the South Lake drainage, areas on and near Glacier Lodge Road, the north section of the June Lakes loop near Parker Lake, Lee Vining Canyon, and Conway Summit. This visit confirmed some of my expectations from the previous week but also offered some surprises.

The thought that the loss of higher elevation leaves might mean that they were done for the season turned out to be not quite correct. This week I saw a surprising amount of color up high. In many places along the eastern escarpment I saw groves of brightly color trees marching right up many ridges.
Although I did not return to North Lake, I even heard reports that it had improved. (Though the person sharing the report pointed out that this would likely not be an exceptional year there.)
The color of the middle and lower level trees seems to be progressing very quickly. I was expecting middle elevation trees to turn by this week, but I was surprised by how low the color extended. If forced to make a prediction, I might guess that the season is going to run its course a bit faster than usual this year. (Stable weather this week – especially if the winds are light – might sustain things a bit longer.)

I feel like every aspen season has its own “personality” – whether it starts gradually or suddenly, early or a bit later, whether it is interrupted by weather events, and how long it lasts. The personality of this year’s eastern Sierra aspen season seems to include the storm that interrupted the early color up high, followed by a very rapid development of color about a week later.

I need to offer a few disclaimers. First, I only visited a small percentage of the places where aspen color may be found in a typical season. Second, while I can make some guesses about how things will evolve going forward, no one really knows. Third, if you are going to head out there to photograph the aspens this season, I urge you to check others sources of information on the conditions before you go.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Schoolhouse Ruins, Rhyolite

October 16, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning sunlight shine through the window frames of the ruins of the abandoned schoolhouse in the ghost town of Rhyolite Nevada, near Death Valley National Park.

The ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada is located just east of the boundary of Death Valley National Park, along the edge of the Amargosa Valley, and not far from Beatty, Nevada, which itself is close to the Nevada Test Site. Put all of that together and you have the potential for a bit of a spooky place!

Rhyolite was a short-lived mining town in the early 1900s, when it apparently was home to thousands of people who streamed to this forsaken landscape to find silver. The town was eventually abandoned – although some mining still takes place in the area – but a good number of the larger buildings are still there, in various states of decay. An old train station that looks pretty fancy is fenced off to keep us out, but you can walk (respectfully and carefully!) among many other old structures including the old school house that is the subject of this photograph.

I’ve been out here a number of times and dawn is my favorite time to photograph here. The light makes it to many of the old ruins very shortly after actual sunrise, and there is a moment of often beautiful light at this time. From Rhyolite the hills inside Death Valley National Park are visible to the west and above the nearer hills you can see Telescope Peak, the highest point in the park at over 11,000′ elevation.

The school (like a few of the other ruins) looks like it must have been a very large and robust structure. Even though the roof and the second floor are gone, almost all of the exterior walls still stand and don’t show any immediate signs of incipient collapse. On this morning I made a series of photographs from just inside one of the “doorways” of the school with a wide-angle lens. I selected and shared a few of them back in 2009, but I recently went back to my original raw files and decided to try this one in black and white.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts when this page is viewed on the web. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.