Golden Face
Golden Face
Taken at Temple Crag and 2nd Lake in the John Muir Wilderness, California on July 1st, 2016.
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Taken at one of the many beautiful lakes in the Gardiner Basin in Kings Canyon National Park on July 20th, 2018.
I almost lost my shoes to the accumulated muck on the bottom of this lake. Kinda like stepping in a six-inch deep layer of snot. I don’t know what that stuff was for sure, but I’m assuming it was made of the decomposing bodies of other photographers who got trapped in it.
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Taken from near Minaret Vista in Mammoth Lakes, California, on July 9, 2017.
Over the 2016-2017 winter Mammoth Lakes received a large amount of snow, to put it mildly. This meant that many roads in the area, such as the road to the Devil’s Postpile National Monument and Minaret Vista, remained closed long after they typically opened. So on the final morning of a High Sierra photography workshop we roused the participants extra early and began the 45-minute walk from the road closure to the Vista.
We arrived to find a decent amount of snow lingering in hard crusts all over the top of the ridge and ambled around it looking for good vantage points. Despite the huge snowfall and massive quantity of spring runoff wildfires had sprung up in the previous weeks throughout the Sierra and we saw the Long Valley Caldera to the east sitting thick and heavy with smoke. As the sun rose above the Glass Mountains it lit the clouds above a deep crimson and turned the smoky haze in the valley shapes of burnt oranges and yellows. With each ridge closer to us the haze grew less, which allowed the natural colors of the forest to shine through, creating a breathtaking spectrum of colors.
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Taken from somewhere in the Alabama Hills, Eastern Sierra, California on February 17th, 2018.
On a clear weekend in mid February a friend and I camped in a place that is endlessly fascinating, the Alabama Hills. Aside from being one of the oldest and most interesting rock formations in the US, the ‘bama Hills serve as an excellent vantage point to gaze at California’s high peaks. Williamson, Russell, Langley, Le Conte, Lone Pine Peak: these mountains dominate the skyline for dozens of miles in any direction. And of course, you have the tallest of them all, Mt. Whitney. Although Whitney is tucked back in, nestled in its mountain throne, and doesn’t look quite as imposing as the more easterly summits, one only has to zoom in with a telephoto lens to see the magnificence of the peak, along with its two attendant needles.
On this trip I wasn’t really planning to do any serious photography, but after checking with my favorite app, PhotoPills I saw that a tiny crescent moon (4.3% full) would be setting over Mt. Whitney, as seen from one of the dirt roads in the area on February 17th. I thought it would be cool to shoot an extreme telephoto image of the crescent as it sank behind the mountains, and positioned myself to do just that.
But after the sun went down and the sky began to darken the moon’s disc became easily visible. What a gorgeous sight that was: the tiny sliver of sunlit moon blazing like a beacon in the sky, then the paler, more subtle disc making itself visible like a visual aftertaste. Knowing the sky would be pitch black by the time the moon actually sank behind the mountains (meaning I’d lose the silhouette of Whitney), I lined up this wider shot, capturing the crescent moon, the full moon disc, the inky blue sky, the silhouette of the mountains, and even a few of the brightest stars. This is a single shot, no compositing, taken with a Nikon D850 and 200-500mm lens at:
ISO400
f/5.6
2 sec
320 mm
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Taken in the Pioneer Basin, John Muir Wilderness, high Sierra Nevada mountains in California on July 11th, 2014
At the tail end of a 5-day backpacking trip through the John Muir Wilderness I woke up to that rarest of Sierra sights: clouds in the sky at morning. After shooting the blazingly colorful sunrise near the shores of the lowest Pioneer Basin lake I was amped up and excited to continue photographing. I wandered up Mono Creek looking for interesting compositions and came across this bend in the stream. A deep, wide pool caused the creek flow to slow down to a snail’s pace, allowing perfect reflections to form in the surface of the water. The clouds overhead diffused the morning sunlight on the landscape and with the help of a GND I was able to capture the painterly light bathing the scene.
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Taken at 3rd Lake, North Fork Big Pine Creek, Eastern Sierra, California on July 1st, 2016
On an overnight backpacking trip to Temple Crag I was treated to a fantastically vibrant light show. The crazy pink and purple hues of sunset mingled with the deep turquoise waters of Third Lake to produce nearly a full rainbow of colors.
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