Tag Archives: 395

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

Aspens, First Autumn Snow

October 13, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 7 Comments

An early season storm brings snow to eastern Sierra Nevada aspen groves.

We made it to the eastern Sierra Nevada last week for the annual pilgrimage to photograph aspen color. We drove over on the day when the first winter-like storm of the season came to the range, and our travel plans changed accordingly. Normally we would cross the Sierra via Tioga Pass through Yosemite National Park. Although the Republican government shutdown closed the park, the trans-Sierra highway 120 remained open… until the night before our trip when it was closed in preparation for the forecast storm. When this pass closes – as it can often do in October, when early season storms drop a few inches of snow on the road – I have to consider options to the north: Sonora, Ebbetts, or Carson Passes. When we started out, Sonora was still open, but I figured that Carson was a better bet, as it is an all-season route. So we headed over Carson in the morning, encountering the first snow flurries well before the pass. From this point on, with the exception of a few lower elevation sections of our drive over Monitor Pass and then down highway 395 to Bishop, we were either in or near light snow.

This has been a slightly different year for aspens – though, to be honest, no two years evolve exactly the same way when it comes to the color transition. The highest trees had mostly lost their leaves, but we saw excellent color in many places all along the route. This color transition marks, for me, the reality that the warm season is over and California’s rainy, snowy, and colder season is coming. Being among the aspens during one of the first early season snow storms amplifies that effect, and we remarked on how sudden the transition was. Only a few days earlier it had been in the low 90 degree range in parts of Central California… and here we were in snow. I photographed the scene in this photograph as we reached the top of Conway Summit, the high point on highway 395 just north of the town of Lee Vining. Here one of the largest and most accessible aspen groves can provide an astonishing amount and variety of color for a few days each year. However, on this day the colors were distinctly muted by the falling snow.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Tungsten Hills, Buttermilk Country, and the Sierra Crest

March 4, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Layers of terrain including Owens Valley sagebrush, the Tungsten Hills, Buttermilk Country, and the Sierra Crest including Basin Mountain, Mount Humphreys, and Mount Emerson.

In some ways this is a very typical eastern Sierra Nevada scene but in others, some of which might not be immediately obvious, it is atypical. I made the photograph while on my way to Death Valley in early January 2012. I had done the long drive over Tioga Pass (a first hint about the “unusual” issue) and was headed south to where I would turn east to cross the Inyo Range to that park. As I descended the long grade from Tom’s Place toward Bishop I passed through familiar Round Valley, but this little scene of sagebrush, Sierra foothills, and the crest caught my attention so I quickly stopped and made a few photographs.

The first and primary unusual thing about this photograph is that this was January! In a typical January the peaks here would be completely buried in winter snows – but this January the snowpack brought to mind mid-July. Although the season had started with early and heavy snows in October, things came to an abrupt halt and at this point it had been a month since real snow had fallen. A second slightly unusual thing is that I made this photograph in the mid-afternoon time frame. This is not a time typically regarded as being conducive to landscape photography. However, the high backlight was making the bluish haze more visible and the light was softened a bit by the high clouds, so I went ahead and made a photograph that, I hope, captures the somewhat harsh and dry conditions of the area and the season.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Owens Valley, Tungsten Hills, and Mount Tom

January 29, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Massive Mount Tom rises above the Tungsten Hills and the high desert terrain of Owens Valley near Bishop, California.

When I’m driving to a photography destination, I often have to suppress the desire to stop and make photographs along the way. If I’m not careful, I can end up spending extra hours on the drive and arrive too late. (Sometimes I plan extra time for my long drives just to accommodate my need to stop and photograph en route.) I cope with sighting photographic potential as I drive by either pretending it isn’t there, filing it away for a later trip… or occasionally giving in and stopping.

As I headed down highway 395 on this winter afternoon, on my way to get a camp site in Death Valley, I was aware of the fact that if I took too long I would end up having to find a camp site and set up camp after dark when I arrived – and my destination was still hours away. But after descending to Round Valley just north of Bishop, California I became more aware of the interesting and somewhat unusually afternoon winter light and I finally just had to make a quick stop. The foreground Owens Valley high desert plants had lost all of their “green,” and now had a range of shades of yellow, brown, red, white, black, and even a bit of near-purple. Beyond them the Tungsten Hills began the rise from the valley toward the crest of the eastern escarpment of the Sierra, here dominated by the bulk of massive Mount Tom, a very tall peak that appears even larger because it sits more to the east than most of the other high peaks. The combination of backlight from above the range and high, thin clouds created a sort of muted sunny effect.

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

Autumn Foliage, Pond, Conway Summit

October 24, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

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.

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Tag Archives: 395

Aspens, First Autumn Snow

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Tungsten Hills, Buttermilk Country, and the Sierra Crest

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Autumn Foliage, Pond, Conway Summit

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

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