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As you can see this track takes off to who knows where!

We followed it for a few miles, looking for fall color. If you look closely, you can see these colored trees snaking down the slopes, there is a creek there and the vegetation follows the water, quite a site to see a strip of golden foliage coming down the mountain! From a distance it looks like liquid gold.

This scene is near Mammoth Lakes on the Eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. We found there was lots and lots of spectacular color to be found. All you needed to do was go look.

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Traveling from East to West on Hwy 120, from Lee Vining to Yosemite, you pass this lake. Stopping to see what kind of shots could be had, this great view presented itself. While little fall color was to be seen, the view was spectacular and this old tree trunk just begged to be included in the shot.

The textures and grain of the wood, the little yellow flowers, the lake with reflections and the mountain in the background were just too good an view to pass by.

Just goes to show that Yosemite and the high country can always be relied on to get great shots, even from the side of the road.

We ventured on to Yosemite after this and while Yosemite is always beautiful, we were too early for any fall color (which comes late in the park) and too early for snow. This show made my day however.

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During a quest to find fall color in the Eastern Sierras, we ended up here, at Convict Lake with Mt Morrison in the background. As you can see there was color spilling down the side of the mountain at the opposite side of the lake. Unfortunately, we could not get there without a boat which we did not have.

I wasn’t too upset however, as the scenery was just spectacular, with lots of opportunities for some great shots. It was a crystal clear day, clouds in the sky, rocks in the foreground and someone in a floaty to add some interest. I was a happy shooter.

I did a bit of research about this area and found there is some interesting history associated with this lake (I like to look these things up).

Convict Lake lies in the Sherwin Range and is only about 10 minutes south of Mammoth Lakes. I learned that this lake has been featured in several movies. The lake was in the opening scenes of “How the West was Won” and it was the filming location for several scenes in the 1998 Star Trek movie “Star Trek: Insurrection”.

The lake got its name in 1871 when a group of convicts escaped from Carson City prison. A posse chased them down and caught them at this lake and the sheriff was killed during this encounter. His name was Robert Morrison and that mountain you see is named after him. Pretty interesting huh?

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Spent the last weekend looking for fall color in the Eastern Sierra. We quickly discovered that the best color was to be found alongside water, be it a lake, river or even a small creek. This shot below was taken along Hwy 120 which is also known as the Tioga Pass road, one of the passes that crosses the Sierra Nevada mountains. Tioga Pass reaches 10,000 feet elevation (9,943 if you want to be very specific) and usually closes quite early due to snow.

We were lucky as the road was still open and we decided to cross the mountains from the Eastern Sierras to the Western side via this pass. Very interesting to see how there was lots of color on the Eastern side, but almost none on the Western side. Very noticeable. The moment we had reached the top, it stopped.

Linda and I had a fantastic weekend and came home with many wonderful and very colorful shots. It was one of these trips where everything worked out in our favor. It started before we had even left having found a hotel with free WiFi at a VERY reasonable rate. During the trip itself, we found abundant color, there was cloud in the sky, it wasn’t too cold and when the sun came out, it positively lit up the yellow leaves as if on fire. You can see that in this shot.

We did have a lot of wind and you could just see the leaves falling from the trees. If that keeps up. it will soon all be gone. Sigh . . .

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We’re on a quest this weekend to find fall color. The time is right, the Eastern Sierras are full of Aspen groves, so there should be no problem finding some, right? Well, as you can see, we did, but it was harder than we thought, but what we found was spectacular. We sought out the lakes as the Aspens seem to thrive along side the wetter areas such as creeks and lakes.

We stayed at Mammoth Lakes along Hwy 395 and used that area as a base. We visited Convict Lake, several lakes around the Mammoth Lakes district and Sabrina Lake. On the way to Sabrina Lake we passed a town called Aspendell where we stopped for lunch. After lunch we decided to look around a bit and we found this pond (full of trout) which was literally surrounded by these trees, in full color. Just spectacular and the reflections just enhanced the whole experience.

We found a lot more spectacular places and I will post some more soon.

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When you drive around Scotland you will find these old stone bridges everywhere, literally. You don’t even have to get off the beaten track, just drive around the Scottish highlands and you can’t miss them.

Personally, I love them, it gives the Scottish countryside a well defined “look”, something that distinguishes it from other countries and landscapes.

Here is one shot a few years ago, I’m sure I would not be able to find this particular one again, but I would be able to find many others. As you can see the weather was not very cooperative, it rained, but then again, it does that often in Scotland.

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Over on the North Eastern shores of Lake Tahoe is an area called Sand Harbor, where you will find these awesome rocks. They can make for excellent subjects and foreground interest in any photograph.

This shot was taken early around 7pm as the sun was setting behind those mountains. The lens was my trusty EF17-40 f/4L at its widest (17mm) setting. On the 5D full frame, you get some vignetting at that wide an angle, but Lightroom’s lens correction feature fixed that without a problem. A wonderful feature indeed.

It did take a bit of a scramble down the rocky banks to get to this point. The best results with a wide angle lens are obtained when you get right up close to anything you want in the foreground.

As usual, this is a 3 shot HDR, processed with Photomatix the given some treatment with my Warming Vignette preset.

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This is my most favorite castle, ever. It is the Eilean Donan Castle on Scotland’s North West coast. It also happens to be the most photographed castle in Scotland, probably because it is such an iconic representation of most people imagine Scottish castles must look like.

The location is spectacular. It is built on a little island (Donan’s island, hence the name) which is connected to the mainland by that stone bridge you see. The body of water is Loch Duich, which is open to the sea. This means the water you see around the Castle rises and drops with the tide.

Just a little further on lies a town with the wonderful name of “Kyle of Lochalsh”. The name just rolls off the tongue beautifully when pronounced in a proper Scottish brogue. The Kyle of Lochalsh is of course the place you go when you want to go to the Isle of Skye.

This photo was taken a few years ago when I visited and it had just rained, as it does a lot in Scotland.

That mountain you see behind the castle is the unpronounceable Sgurr Mhic Bharraich and behind that is the Saddle, one of the more famous maintains of the Scottish Highlands and a popular hiking destination.

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It’s 5:30 am and Linda and I are on our way to Mono Lake. As we approach, we see the sky turn this magnificent orange and we had to make a decision. Do we stop and shoot this from the side of the road and run the risk of missing anything colorful at the tufas. Or do we continue on and hope that there will still be color in the sky when we get to the tufas? What to do!?

Well, we stopped and shot the sky. Side of the road on Hwy 395. The guys in the fishing boat just made it perfect. Fire in the sky, clouds in the sky, just perfect.

Best of all, when we got to the tufas, the clouds were just perfect and we ended up getting some of our best Mono Lake shots that morning. What a morning! All this before 8am – wow.

There is very little post processing here. Pretty much straight out of the camera, it was that gorgeous! A little vignette and tweaked up the black a bit, that’s all.

Enjoy!

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I don’t often do B&W. not because I don’t like it, but I just don’t “think” about it. For some reason I rarely do a B&W conversion, but this time I did and I must say, I LOVE the outcome.

There are two processing techniques here. The first is an HDR treatment, using 3 shots at 2 stops apart. I liked the result, but I then started playing with my Lightroom Presets and I really liked the result on this.

As stated in a previous post,, California will be closing Mono Lake State Park next year due to budget cuts. This is what prompted us to go see this lake again.

Hope you like the B&W

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