Tag Archives: range

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

Mount Morgan and Slopes of McGee Mountain, Morning

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Mount Morgan and Slopes of McGee Mountain, Morning
Mount Morgan and Slopes of McGee Mountain, Morning

Mount Morgan and Slopes of McGee Mountain, Morning. Owens Valley, California. October 10, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light on the lower slopes of McGee Mountain, the McGee Creek Canyon area and snow-capped Mount Morgan, with Owens Valley sagebrush and hills in the foreground.

I began my early morning shoot in Owens Valley near a small lake further to the east where I wanted to photograph dawn light. I had a plan to shoot a few other subjects in the valley and back toward the Sierra crest as the sun rose and the light changed, and part of this plan included driving along a gravel road I know to a spot where I had photographed before to try to combine the high desert sagebrush and rolling hills with some of the tall and rugged, snow-topped peaks along the escarpment of the eastern Sierra. I found a spot in the general area of where I wanted to photograph and then wandered off down a small dirt track to find a location that would put the foreground shadow across the lower part of the frame.

The area of the Sierra in this photograph includes the sunlit lower slopes of McGee Mountain on the right, McGee Creek Canyon beyond that, and ridges leading to the snow-capped summit of Mount Morgan. I’m not certain whether they are visible in this photograph, but beyond that lies Pioneer Basin (on the other side of the crest) and a group of four peaks named for the “Railroad Barons” of the 1800s: Crocker, Stanford, Huntington, and Hopkins.

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.

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keywords: owens, valley, sage, sagebrush, hills, high, desert, mount, morgan, snow, capped, peak, ridg

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

Eastern Sierra Nevada, Alkali Lake, Dawn

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Eastern Sierra Nevada, Alkali Lake, Dawn
Eastern Sierra Nevada, Alkali Lake, Dawn

Eastern Sierra Nevada, Alkali Lake, Dawn. Owens Valley, California. October 10, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Snow-dusted peaks of the eastern Sierra Nevada near Mammoth Lakes illuminated by dawn light and reflected in the surface of an Owens Valley alkali lake.

I like to stay flexible when I photograph so even though my original reason for traveling to the eastern Sierra was to photograph fall aspen color, when it seemed that other subjects might be just as interesting I switched gears and headed out into Owens Valley to photograph this high desert region and the morning views from there of the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada. I first got this idea the previous morning while driving towards some prospective aspen color before dawn when I saw the outlines of fog over Crowley Lake and other areas of the valley. I ended up shooting along Hot Creek as fog rose from the water and the Sierra crest broke through in the distance. (Photos of that scene will likely appear here later on.) On my way to Hot Creek I passed this lake and decided not to stop since it looked like photography workshop participants were already crowded along one shore.

The next morning I once again thought that I’d start my day out in Owens Valley. This time I went straight to this lake – which I believe is known as “Little Alkali Lake” – and found it completely deserted and the water totally still. It remained that way as I made my way to the far shore and set up before sunrise. In this part of Owens Valley, on cold mornings there are clouds and columns of steam rising all around, coming from the many hot springs that remind one of the volcanic forces hidden just below the surface of this area. Some of the steam sources are visible across the lake in the photograph. Soon the dawn light began to touch the highest peaks and then work its way down toward the rolling hills of the valley floor, reflected in the smooth water of this small lake. This part of the Sierra includes an impressive group of peaks including Mounts Morrison, Baldwin, and Morgan along with McGee Mountain.

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.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Aspens and Peaks Above North Lake, Morning

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Autumn Aspens and Peaks Above North Lake, Morning
Autumn Aspens and Peaks Above North Lake, Morning

Autumn Aspens and Peaks Above North Lake, Morning. Sierra Nevada, California. October 2, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light on colorful autumn aspens below the alpine ridges and peaks at North Lake, Sierra Nevada, California.

This was a particularly beautiful morning at iconic North Lake in the Bishop Creek drainage of the eastern Sierra Nevada. While dozens of photographers lined up tripod-to-tripod at the lower end of the lake, I decided to look elsewhere. After spending some productive time walking the road along the shoreline of the lake and searching out some of the smaller and perhaps less-obvious subjects, I saw the conjunction of this very colorful group of aspens at the bottom of the frame, the morning light on the peaks and broken by the passing clouds, and the carpets of smaller aspen trees ascending the higher slopes of Piute Crags. Rather than doing the classic “lake with mountain shot” that we’ve seen so often from North Lake – and it is a wonderful view! – I thought I’d try to more tightly frame these portions of the scene that got my attention.

I made this photograph with what some might regard as a somewhat unusual landscape lens, the Canon EF 135mm f/2 prime. This is a really wonderful lens that is often used for other subjects such as low light photographs of people and even for portrait work. It is a wonderful lens – in many ways not all that flashy, but just a very reliable and quality performer. I’ve written before that I most often use zoom lenses to shoot landscapes – and there are a number of reasons for this that I won’t go into right now – but I also carry a small number of primes when shooting like this, and if I have the time to work more slowly and the composition works for one of the primes I’ll use it instead.

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.

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

Conway Summit Aspens, Autumn

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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.

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