Notes To My Mother

In the fall of 2023 I became aware of a composition I wanted to capture in the Eastern Sierras.  The problem was not knowing exactly were it was.  I had seen a picture of it and knew it was in the Bishop area due to the particular mountains in the scene. I was pretty sure it was taken from Table Lands north of Bishop.   I started searching, driving around, walking to the edge of Table Lands with no luck.   I was able to rule out a number of locations.   Then I resorted to Google Earth and, finally after much exploring, figured out what I thought was at least the approximate location.  I had found a dirt road and knew I could continue my quest on that road and get fairly close to where I thought I should be.  I began planning a trip to the Bishop area but what I needed for success was a good storm to bring the snow down the eastern faces of the Sierra mountains.  Finally, a good storm was predicted for early March 2024.    ...

  Dallas Creek Road I have not spent enough time in Colorado.  It has such amazing beauty.  The one place I did spend some time was in the San Juan Mountains.  I was there about 10 days, first with a group of photographers and then with my wife, Jan.  The scene above is on Dallas Creek Road.  I had been there a few days earlier with the group of photographers but the sky was boring and the snow was missing.  One morning, after the photographers had left Jan and I were staying in Ouray.  It snowed! I was up before dawn and headed for this location.  In the dark I missed the turn off and did a bit of frantic wandering until I finally found the road.  I knew this location with fall color, snow on the mountains and a dramatic cloudy sky could be an exceptional scene to photograph.  That is Mt Sneffles in the background and Dallas Creek in the foreground right.     This is a closer look at the scene on the left of the prev...

A couple of friends and I decided we would like to have some pictures of the full moon setting over the Grand Canyon.  We found a full moon date that was workable for all of us, scheduled our flights, booked our rooms and rented a car and met up at the airport in Phoenix.  We stayed in Tusayan making it easy to get to the canyon before fist light.  Most of the year, there are places to the west of the village that you cannot drive your car, requiring transport by the park bus system.  But in winter months those roads are open to passenger cars making getting around a breeze.  Shooting a setting moon requires good timing.  If you are there too early the canyon will be too dark.  If you are late the moon will have disappeared below the horizon.  On this day our timing was good, but notice the band of clouds just below the moon.  Within minutes it obscured the moon.  Good photography involves being at the right place at the right time and a...

As you may have gathered from previous posts, the Eastern Sierras is one of my favorite places to spend time.  Here are a few of the spots that I particularly like.  Highway 168 out of Bishop, CA, will take you into a beautiful area of the Sierras following Bishop Creek to the west and into the mountains. The scene above is Bishop Creek on the way to South Lake. Not far away is North Lake a very pretty lake in late September and early October. It is the place to be early in the morning just before the sun hits the mountain peaks. You will know you are in the right place by the crowd of photographers. A picture of this lake was the screensaver image on iMacs a few years ago. Whenever I am in the Sierras in early October I head for this lake to catch a beautiful sunrise. What I really want is an image of this location during Autumn color with snow on the peaks. Just missed it a  couple of years ago. The next best thing is North Lake with mirror-like reflections, autumn colo...