I came to this ridge overlooking Mono Basin and the Eastern Sierra well before sunrise. My intention was to photograph some extensive aspen groves along with other landscape subjects as the morning light arrived. It turned out that I was too late in the season for these aspens — I should have remembered that their drop leaves early — so I worked those other subjects as sunrise began to light up the terrain.
Continue reading First Light on Bare Aspens
This was my final aspen photograph of the day. These trees grow in what feels like high desert terrain along the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada. This is essentially “sage brush country,” though as the elevation rises there are increasing numbers of conifers. Being east of the crest of the range, the area falls into evening shadows well before actual sunset.
Continue reading Evening Aspens
The northwest Scotland landscape is spectacular in so many ways — the highlands mountains of course, but also the coast, and the lower elevation valleys and rivers. It is relatively “empty,” in the sense that you are often out of sight of signs of civilization, aside from the single-track road you might be driving. But empty as it is, it is not wilderness, and there are plenty of little hamlets and isolated homes and lodgings.
Continue reading Rural Stone Buildings at Loch Stack
I was up and out of camp in the dark on this late-August morning. My plan was to work my way up Tioga Pass Road toward the pass, where I had a few subjects in mind along the way. After that I would head over the pass and out of the park to explore some areas just east of the Sierra crest. After going to the end of this valley to make a few photographs of alpine terrain, I headed back down this way, to pausing at a few places I had noted on the way up.
Continue reading Sierra Meadow and Peak