Tag Archives: conway

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

Grazing Cattle and Aspen Groves, Conway Summit

2 Comments
Grazing Cattle and Aspen Groves, Conway Summit
Grazing Cattle and Aspen Groves, Conway Summit

Grazing Cattle and Aspen Groves, Conway Summit. Sierra Nevada, California. October 10, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Cattle graze in front of large aspen groves near Conway Summit, California.

Just about anyone who has every photographed aspens in the area around Lee Vining is probably familiar with this location – and I’ve certainly shot there quite a few times. From highway 395 the aspens extend west and up toward the peaks of the Sierra crest, and the at the right hour in the late afternoon the backlight can light up the leaves of the trees. When I visited this time the trees were in transition with some still green, others very colorful, and some almost leafless already. I was also lucky to have some clouds at the end of several cloudless days of photography. (Normal people like perfect blue sky, but photographers are not normal – we tend to like weather!) When I saw the clouds starting to form above the crest early in the afternoon I thought that something interesting might happen later near Conway so I made a point of heading that direction.

This photograph features, of all things, cattle – not my usual subject, perhaps! The area where these aspens grow seems to be at least as much a pasture as it is aspen groves, and I’ve seen cattle grazing in this spot before. (See comments for a note from a member of the family that owns the land.) As the clouds created shadows over the higher slopes in the background, for a moment the sun still hit the foreground trees and these cattle.

This shot also ties in with my recent post on using various focal lengths for landscape photography, in that this photograph was made with what some might regard as an unlikely landscape lens, a 100-400mm zoom! But in this case, this lens at 250mm was just what I needed to more tightly frame the bit of foreground pasture and sunlit trees and compress the distance between them and the shadowed hills beyond.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email

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

Conway Summit Aspens, Autumn

3 Comments
Conway Summit Aspens, Autumn
Conway Summit Aspens, Autumn

Conway Summit Aspens, Autumn. Sierra Nevada, California. October 10, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Layers of colorful autumn aspen groves lead up toward Dunderberg Meadow and Peak above Conway Summit, California.

I often plan my visits to this large aspen grove on the high point of highway 395 just north of Lee Vining for late afternoon, when the rows upon rows of large aspen groves are back-lit by the afternoon sun as it drops towards the crest of the Sierra Nevada near Dunderberg peak. Each grove tends to change color at a slightly different time, and each can take on a different shade ranging from green (in the case of those that change a bit later) to golden and red and orange. This year, in this area, the colors seem to tend more towards gold/yellow and less towards red/orange, but no matte what the shade they light up in this light.

I was extra lucky on this afternoon in that there were clouds. Talk to many Sierra photographers about the weather and you’ll discover that we are not so fond of the “perfect blue sky weather” that so many others love. Yes, it is “pleasant.” No, it is not necessarily visually interesting. It had been that sort of “perfect” weather for the first couple days of this visit to the “east side,” but in the middle of the afternoon on this day puffy clouds began to form over the crest, and their shadows added texture and brought out the shapes of hills and ridges beyond the aspens.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email

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

Golden Aspen Grove, Conway Summit

Leave a comment
Golden Aspen Grove, Conway Summit
Golden Aspen Grove, Conway Summit

Golden Aspen Grove, Conway Summit. Sierra Nevada, California. October 10, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Groves of tightly spaced slender aspen trees with golden fall leaves at Conway Summit, California.

Conway Summit is a location well-known to many eastern Sierra photographers, especially those who photograph the autumn aspen color displays. The “Summit” is the high point on the highway 395 just north of the town of Lee Vining, and the aspens grow to the west on the slopes that gradually rise toward Dunderberg Meadow and Peak. When I’m looking for brilliant autumn color here, several factors come into play. First, you have to be there at the right time. This isn’t always easy to predict, and when the color is great in one area of these trees it may have passed or not yet arrived in others. Second, you need to come at the “right” time of day. For me this means, at least at Conway, coming in the mid- to late-afternoon when the groves are lit by backlight coming across the Sierra crest. Third, it helps a lot if you can be there for conditions that are not too ordinary. For example, on the afternoon when I made this and some others photographs that may follow, after a weekend of boring perfect cloud-free weather some puffy clouds began to form above the Sierra crest, and their shadows raced across the area and created patterns of light and dark.

This photograph is also an example of long lens landscape photography. For some reason there are those who think that landscape photography must be done with certain lenses, often those of “normal” to wide focal length ranges. Those certainly have their place, and I use them too. However, I find that longer focal lengths are also indispensable – not just for filling the frame with subjects that you otherwise might not be able to approach, but also to compress foreground and background and to narrow the depth of field, among other reasons. Here I photographed with a 100-400mm telephoto at 250mm.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email

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

Conway Summit Aspens in Rain

7 Comments
Conway Summit Aspens in Rain
Conway Summit Aspens in Rain

Conway Summit Aspens in Rain. Conway Summit, California. October 3, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Fall rain and mist mute the colors of the extensive aspen groves above Conway Summit on Highway 395 in the eastern Sierra Nevada.

Just back from the eastern Sierra an hour or so earlier, and I want to get something posted before going to bed – so here is more or less the last photograph I made today. It rained lightly (and sometimes more heavily) all day, starting when I woke up in Bishop Canyon, continuing as I photographed in that general area until the early afternoon, and then following me north as I headed up to the Lee Vining area. Although I saw a few spots of sun as I drove towards this huge aspen grove near Conway Summit, by the time I arrived it was raining steadily. My plan was to decide here whether to continue my aspen hunt into the evening as I drove further north… or to recognize that the weather was going to be an issue and instead head up Tioga Pass and over the pass to return home.

Since it was raining at Conway Summit, after stopping to make a few exposures (including this one) I headed back to Lee Vining and then up to Tioga Pass. This Conway Summit photograph probably illustrates some important variables of landscape photograph in general and aspen photography specifically. Based on visits to this area in previous years, I was expecting less color than I found – while a lot of trees were still green, the higher trees had turned their most intense colors, and sections of the lower groves also were quite colorful. Despite the planning that gets me to places like this at the right time of day and at about the right time of the year, some things cannot be controlled – in this case, it was the weather. Also, even though I came here with a fairly specific shooting plan, once I arrived the conditions were tough enough that I had to work quickly. Fortunately I know this place pretty well, so I was able to find the scene I wanted to shoot without a lot of searching and I was then able to capture a few frames quickly… and get back into the car and out of the rain!

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email