The north shoreline of Mono Lake leads from foreground offshore tufa past the base of Black Point to Negit Island and beyond.
You would never know it from this black and white photograph of the austere desert landscape around Mono Lake, but I was there to photograph… fall aspen color! Earlier in the day I had photographed further south along the eastern slopes of the Sierra, gradually working my way north with a plan of heading back to the “west side” over Tioga Pass at the end of the day after doing a last bit of fall color photography near Conway Summit and Dunderberg Road in late-afternoon light. By mid-afternoon I had made it to Lee Vining for an espresso stop at Latte Da and a break to check some email and so forth. Soon it was time to get into position for the low angle sun that would light the aspens a bit later, so I headed north out of town.
The road north from Lee Vining skirts the west shore of Mono Lake. Before leaving the lake there is a turn-off to another road that passes along the north shore of Mono Lake and can take you to places such as Black Point. I often stop at this turn-off since it provides a slightly elevated view of the larger terrain around the lake including the low hills to the east and Mono Craters and higher mountains to the south. On a typical blue sky mid-afternoon I might not make any photographs, but something about the light and the forms of the shoreline, Black Point, and Negit Island leading into the distance convinced me to make a few exposures, using a long lens to compress the distance.
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.
“Abandoned Pier, Dusk” — The pilings of a long-abandoned pier on the Pacific coast near Davenport, California.
Besides being a matter of hours from the Sierra Nevada and less than a day’s drive from places like Death Valley, I can be at the Pacific coast between San Francisco and Santa Cruz in barely more than a half hour. Yesterday it looked like evening conditions might be interesting so I headed over there in the late afternoon. As I crossed the mountains on my way there I was pleasantly surprised to see low clouds over the ridges and some higher clouds over towards the ocean, which got my hopes up for some sort of spectacular evening light. However, when I actually got the the coast the conditions were not as interesting – mostly clear with just a bit of cloudiness on the horizon, and no interesting haze or mist over the water. Either that or I just wasn’t “seeing it” this time. So, after stopping for a cup of coffee, I headed up the coast from Santa Cruz and stopped at several of the usual locations, but didn’t make a single exposure. At the northernmost point on my drive I stopped right by the water and it looked like interesting light might be five or ten minutes away… and then the sun dropped below some low clouds near the horizon and the light died!
I think I’ve learned to go with the flow when this happens. I react in several ways. One is to look around for subjects other than those that I thought I was there for. With that in mind I thought about photographing shore birds… but there was only one forlorn seagull down near the water. I saw an interesting pool of water on the beach and thought it might play into a seascape photograph, but the flat light and cloudless sky was not working. I remembered a spot a bit further south where I had once shot some shoreline shoals from the top of a steep cliff at sunset, so I quickly drove up that way… and couldn’t find them!
I had one final thought. On the way north I had seen a group of photographers on the bluff near the northern edge of Davenport. I had stopped, leaving my camera equipment in the car, and quickly dashed out to where they were set up to see what was so interesting. Below their position were the four remaining supports from an old pier that washed away many years ago. It looked interesting and I recognized the structure from photographs that others have made from down on the beach – but I hadn’t been up for the steep descent to the beach so I had driven on after making a mental note about a position from which I thought a photograph might be made. Now I realized that if I went straight there that I might be able to make some long exposures in the dying light and perhaps frame them so that they only contained the structures and the open sea. So, off I went.
I arrived just before the moment of sunset and, sure enough, the group of photographers I had seen earlier was still there. I grabbed my gear and quickly walked out to the point I had scoped out earlier, which was some distance from where they were set up. I framed up this composition and then photographed right though sunset until there wasn’t really enough light to keep shooting. (The group at one point looked like they thought the show was over and they were going to leave, but I think they saw me continuing to shoot and decided to stick around almost as long as I did.) The light just kept getting more interesting as it faded. Although it was too dark to really see the image as it appears here, I knew that this three minute exposure (intentionally lengthened by choosing a small aperture and low ISO) would smooth out the surface of the water but still show the shadows and reflections of the old pilings.
Leave a comment or question using the form. (If you are reading this on the home page, click the article title to see the full article and the comment form.
Brilliantly colorful aspens ascend a hillside valley above the reflecting surface of a Sierra Nevada lake.
This absurdly colorful hillside above a small lake is a well-known autumn sight in the eastern Sierra above Bishop, California. If you hit it at just the right time and in just the right light, the colors can be almost hallucinogenic. (I’ve heard it called the “Cheetos forest,” for reasons that are probably pretty obvious.)
I’ve been there plenty of times, but have never quite hit the right combination of conditions to get a good shot of the color. I came very close a few years ago, arriving in the pre-dawn hours when there was just enough light to make out the river of color snaking up the small valley above the aspen forest near the lakeshore – but before the sun came up a snow squall swept through. I cowered in my car for half hour to escape the wind, and when I was able to get out and start shooting…. half the leaves that had been there 30 minutes earlier were gone!
The good fortune this time was not just that I was there when the color was strong, but it was also a matter of light and weather conditions. The day started out overcast, and things were looking a bit dull. But soon the clouds began to break up to the east (to the right in the photo) and bright but soft light began to filter though and between the clouds as if someone had set up a giant light panel to the east. Instead of photographing the entire hillside, I decided to photograph the horizontal layers rising from the reflections in the surface of the water, through the shoreline grasses and bushes, past the yellow/orange/gold aspens, and up the slope to the brilliant orange colors above.
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.
Brilliant gold and red fall aspens ring the upper shore of North Lake as the Sierra Crest towers above.
Somewhat past the “golden hours” of first light I investigated a hill above this lake as a possible shooting location. Because this was a morning of mixed clouds and sun, the time for good light was more extended than it might otherwise have been. The clouds began thicker and gradually began to thin, and as they did so the mixed sun and cloud shadows moved continually across the landscape, spotlighting different parts of the scene. This was one of those situations that puts the lie to the notion that the landscape is a fixed and static thing – from my perspective the entire scene was in a constant state of flux and photographing it required full attention. Here most of the shadows had cleared from the scene, with the exception of some over the foreground lake and a few scattered among the peaks, and beams of light slanted into the scene to light up the grove of brilliantly colorful fall 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.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
Manage Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
