On my recent trip to the Owens Valley, I tried to look for good panorama opportunities. These situations arise when there is an expansive vista that lends well to an image that is three to six times wider than it is high. As with any photograph, one thing to keep in mind is to make sure the entire contents of the frame supports the photograph. There should be no large empty areas, unless those areas purposefully support the image with negative space.
These images can be created with any regular digital camera. The images are stitched together in post processing to create large, wide angle views. All of the photos presented here are in the 40 to 100 megapixel range, which means they can be printed very large (at least 30×90 inches). For better appreciation for the detail captured in these photos, please be sure to click on the image to see a larger view.
A popular stop on any eastern Sierra tour is the Alabama Hills outside of Lone Pine. I’ve been here before, but every time I come back I see new things to focus on and photograph. Dawn is the most versatile time to shoot the area, as your photographs are enhanced by the intense alpenglow that adorns the 14,000 foot peaks to the west.
The two dominating mountain subjects in this area are Mt. Langley (above) and the Mt. Whitney massif (below). I was lucky to shoot the area after an early season snow storm, so I had some snow to contrast the red rock of the mountain tops. The Alabama Hills are covered with interesting boulder shapes, which provides endless photographic possibilities.
Using an entire arsenal of lens lengths is key to this area. Wide angles work well framing mountains inside of arches. Medium lengths can use rock formations as foregrounds, while not diminishing the relative size of the massive mountains in the background (as seen in the first photo). Perhaps my favorite in this area however, are the long lenses. Point them anywhere and you’ll see interesting rock detail or a study of the cracks and crags that define a mountain face.
I kept shooting until the red glow of the mountains faded to its natural gray, and the long shadows of dawn began to shrink. I looked to the shady spots so that I didn’t have to work against the harsh shadows of mid morning. My eye was drawn to the variety of cactus growing in this high desert. In order to separate the cactus from their busy surroundings, I attached my 70-200mm lens and got down on my stomach. I worked with apertures that gave me just enough depth of field for the cactus, but threw the background out of focus.
After another hour, it was time to pack up for the morning and head out. If I had several days here, I would use this part of the day to explore and scout potential spots for future sunsets and sunrises. Unfortunately this day, I had other places to visit.
Earlier this month I had the pleasure of attending a short three-day workshop with David Muench, one of this country’s preeminent landscape photographers. Assisting him was Jerry Dodrill, who spend his early professional photography career working for Galen Rowel. It was great to catch up with both of them, and see some of the best that the eastern Sierra has to offer in the spring. It was a busy three days, during which I averaged about four hours of sleep per night. I spent a few days on either end of the workshop to meet up with friends and do a little exploring on my own. Here are a few photographs from the trip.
The photo above and directly below were taken in early morning in the Alabama Hills, just outside of Lone Pine. It is an area famous not only for the sheer face of the eastern Sierra and the multitude of arches that frame them, but also for the many movies made here. Recent films include Iron Man, Gladiator, and Gone In 60 Seconds. Driving out on the dusty dirt road after sunrise, we saw two women walking along the road. I did a double take as I saw one of them was Penny Marshall. Really weird place to see a Hollywood celebrity!
I love the barrel cactus growing in this area, and wanted to feature one using the backdrop of Mt. Whitney and Mt. Langley.
This photograph is a more straight-forward interpretation, using the layering of rock bands to lead up to Mt. Langley. The area offers infinite patterns of boulders and rocks, many of which can be composed into very strong photographs. This is one of many areas for which David Meunch is famous.
The mountains to the west of Bishop provide a dramatic backdrop for a variety of foreground locations and environments. The above photo used a small pond in a flooded field to create a reflection of Mt. Humphreys, Basin Mountain, and Mt. Tom (from left to right). The morning was clear with not a cloud in the sky (not a photographer’s best conditions for shooting!) The lack of wind was great for reflections, but the lack of clouds reduced the drama of the morning significantly. This is one of those examples of a great location with imperfect conditions. It is definitely a spot I hope to revisit and capture with more dramatic skies.
Our last evening brought a special sunset treat – a long line of lenticular clouds that formed above the Sierra crest had blown out over the Owen’s Valley. With strong winds out of the west, there was no cloud buildup in that direction, allowing the sun to light up the underside of the lenticulars at sunset. This phenomenon can happen regularly in the area due to the local topography, and has come to be know as the “Sierra wave”.
It was a great trip – I got to spend time with friends and meet some new ones. Although nature photography tends to be a “solo sport”, it can be great fun meeting up with like-minded people.
This week’s photo was taken on a recent morning spent in Alabama Hills just outside of Lone Pine, California. I was there with a group from a Mountain Light workshop led by David Muench. After capturing the unreal alpenglow on the peaks of the nearby eastern Sierra fourteen-ers, I sought out some other foregrounds and settled on this group of barrel cacti. I wanted to really emphasize the texture and contrast of these plants, and minimize the sheer faces of the mountains looming in the background. I played with angles and converging lines here for quite a while until I got something I liked. In the end, I mounted the camera just above and behind the cactus, shooting them with a wide angle only a few inches away.
The shot above was another take an a different cluster of cacti. Here I had to balance the shaded foreground with the brightly lit mountains and rock, which was in full sun by this point in the morning. In the end I blended two shots, the first exposed correctly for the mountainous background (with the highlights pushed all the way to the right of the histogram). The second shot was exposed two stops lighter, in order to get adequate detail in the shadowed foreground. I find that blending two images that are more than two stops from each other looks too unnatural – I would rather sacrifice some detail in the shadows and bring the exposures of the two shots closer together.