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Archive for the ‘Sierra Nevada’ Category

This view of Yosemite was made famous by Ansel Adams. It remains today one the most spectacular views of the valley and you will find countless photographers there every single day, regardless of the weather. As the day comes to an end, you will often find a dozen tripods lined up with photographers waiting for some sunset magic to happen.

As they say, the golden hour is that special time of day when the light is softer and wonderful shots can be made. No guarantees of course, but you usually have much better images thanks to the light.

So here I am, waiting for dusk to fall, yes standing alongside many people with cameras. Most have a point and shoot or cell phone, but there are about ten tripod-wielding photographers who are clearly more dedicated. I have this theory that the quality (and price) of their tripod is a good indication of how serious they are about their photography. My reasoning is simple, I know people who will spend thousands on a fancy camera, because they have the money, but have little clue about serious photography. A tripod on the other hand is the non-glamorous part of of photography, so when you see someone with a nice carbon fiber tripod equipped with a quality ball head, you know this is someone who is serious about their work.

So, with that said, a quick look around and I see 7 or 8 carbon fiber tripods, all holding the usual Nikon or Canon gear. The Canon users have lenses with the famous red line, the Nikon users have the gold-colored markings on their lenses. One guy has a Lee Neutral Density Graduated filter in front of his lens, looks like a 3-stop soft-edge kind. A true landscape photographer! I like him already!

So we wait and wait . . . and are all somewhat disappointed. No magic tonight. No color in the sky! This shot you see here was taken relatively early and those clouds you see were all gone by the time the sun actually set, a wonderfully uninteresting sunset! Bummer, now I will have to come back again!

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Standing on Cathedral Beach in Yosemite, temperature is 23F (-5C) waiting for the sun to come up and hit the top of El Capitan. Being January, this didn’t happen until almost 9am. While that sounds civilized, I got there very early hoping for some pre-sunrise magic which never happened. As a result, I was frozen to the bone by the time the moment finally arrived. Linda had already gone back to the car, but I was stubborn enough to wait. My hands were sore and that was with gloves. You can see the ice on the water and the frost on those leaves in the foreground.

In the end, it is all worth it of course and now I can tell the story (which undoubtedly will get better overtime) how I braved the cold for this shot.

I used my favorite 17-40mm lens for that great wide-angle effect and which lets me get real up close to subjects like that log. In fact, Linda and I had given ourselves the assignment of only shooting with our wide angle lenses. For me that was the 17-40 mm on my 5D Mark2 and for Linda, with her 7D, it was the 10-22mm.

HDR, for shots and processed with Oloneo Photoengine.

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One morning early, near Mono Lake, this great view of the Sierra Nevada mountains presented itself. As you can see the sun was just coming up behind me and lit up the mountains in this red glow.

The sky was pretty spectacular too, all the more rewarding to see as this was my last day and there had been no clouds in previous days. This is always a beautiful area and there is always something wonderful to shoot, but when Mother Nature helps a lending hand with such beautiful clouds and color, it is a very satisfying thing. I “knew” I had a great shot as I tripped the shutter and a quick look at the LCD screen confirmed as much.

About this shot:

Canon 5D Mark 2 with a 24-105 f/4 L lens, set at it widest (24mm). 1/6 second at f/18. Shot on a tripod with cable release.

This is a 3 shot HDR using Photomatix’s fusion process to blend. I find it a less “aggressive” method of blending these shots.

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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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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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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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