October 2011 – Kurt M. Lawson Photography Blog

Archive for October, 2011

The varied face of Mount Whitney

by Kurt October 12, 2011 in California, Sierra Nevada 0 comments

Mount Whitney has solidified a special place in my heart. The quest was really quite an adventure, and was a catalyst for my discovering this world of wilderness landscapes not accessible by car. In fact, while on this mountain I conceived an idea for what could be a stunning photograph. This is a project that occupied the majority of my free time this year, and will be the subject of future writing and hopefully publishing (more on that soon). The project provided impetus behind most of my road trips since January this year, spending long nights doing star trail photography in the desert with several test cameras and tripods. I’ve visited the area several times as a result, and here is a selection of images of the varied face of Mount Whitney.

Whitney in the shadows

Here she is in September masked by a thunderstorm

Windy Winter on Whitney

Mount Whitney in March showing off what a high Sierra winter looks like

The moon over Mount Whitney

In June patches of snow were definitely still lingering

Morning Twilight on Mount Whitney

A morning twilight view in July shows subtle and beautiful subdued tones

First moonlight on Mount Whitney

Finally a view from the Alabama Hills, by moonlight and starlight. This exposure, approximately 4 hours on film, captures the first bit of moonlight lighting the top of the eastern Sierras after a few hours of total darkness.

This striking peak has held captive over me this year, and I do not doubt I will revisit her again.

As a bonus I shot video of the crazy wintery conditions on Whitney back in March.

Just a taste of fall with the quaking aspens

by Kurt October 9, 2011 in California 1 comment

Every fall for the last several years, I have endeavored to shoot some fall colors amongst the quaking aspens of the west. I’ve been fascinated by these incredible trees ever since seeing them in person during a family trip to Aspen, Colorado where I was able to experience them near the Maroon Bells. The bark of these trees, which are often massive clonal colonies of a single interconnected root system, has a fascinating quality that makes them appear to almost bend light around the trunks. It’s as if they glow at the edges.

The day job keeps me very busy and is not very conducive doing photography trips even on weekends, and this year has proven to be no exception. Last year I was able to squeeze in marathon 860 mile road trip starting at 1PM on a Saturday and ending the following Sunday evening. You can see those photos in my fall color Flickr set.

This year on another road trip I was able to capture just the very beginnings of fall in the Sierras. By and large the aspen groves were still green, with just a few tiny bits of green and even smaller bits of orange. I visited the Bishop Creek area, heading to South Lake, North Lake and Lake Sabrina. Here are a few of the tiny bits of color I found.

Backlit Green and Gold

This was a group of aspens showing early color at North Lake. I liked the way the still green aspen branches framed the more yellow ones behind.

Aspens in the spotlight

Along the road to South Lake was a patch of yellow along the side of the road in front of a bunch of talus. The contrast was striking. There were thousands of insects flying around.

180 degrees of green and gold

During this week I had rented the Canon 8-15mm f4L fisheye lens. This lens on the 8mm side provides a 180 degree field of view. A nicely curved aspen trunk seemed to invite the the curved fisheye image here.

Unfortunately for 2011, this is likely the extent of my fall color shooting. Next year, I hope to take a month and head into Utah and Colorado to find some of the epic aspen groves. With a little luck perhaps I will even see Pando, the “Trembling Giant”, a clonal aspen colony that is possibly 80,000 to 1,000,000 years old and currently is estimated to be the largest organism on Earth.