by Michael Frye | Nov 22, 2015 | Light and Weather
Fog and clouds over Mono Lake with the White Mountains in the distance. On this October morning we had planned to go the June Lake Loop, but some interesting clouds prompted me to photograph sunrise along the lakeshore. As the sunrise color faded, I noticed a layer of fog forming over the lake. We drove up toward Conway Summit to get above the fog, and stopped along the road, where I stayed for about 30 minutes photographing the shifting fog and clouds. This is a blend of three exposures using Lightroom’s new HDR Merge.
Mono Lake is a special place. First, of course, there are those amazing tufa formations. But it’s also unusual to see such large body of water surrounded by desert sagebrush. And then there are the mountains in the background, including the dramatic escarpment of the Sierra Nevada to the west, and the White Mountains to the southeast. Oh, and I almost forgot the wonderful bird life!
That unique setting is often adorned by interesting clouds, and occasional fog. We spent a lot of time in Lee Vining this summer and fall photographing the night sky and fall color, but we also had opportunities to photograph this beautiful lake under a variety of conditions, so I thought I’d show a few of those images here. I’ve included extended captions to give a little information about each photograph.
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by Michael Frye | Nov 17, 2015 | Night Photography
Lunar eclipse sequence with light-painted Joshua trees, September 27th, 2015, Joshua Tree NP, CA, USA
Here, finally, is my photograph of the lunar eclipse on September 27th. We went to Colorado right after this, and then to the eastern Sierra, and in the middle of all that I had to deal with a computer problem, so it’s taken me awhile to put together this sequence.
You might recall that I had planned to go to Death Valley or the Alabama Hills for the eclipse, but a stream of high clouds threatened to block the view, so at the last minute we decided to head further south, away from the clouds, to Joshua Tree National Park.
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by Michael Frye | Nov 15, 2015 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
Snow-covered California black oak, late autumn, Yosemite, Tuesday morning
I’m in Dallas today teaching a Lightroom workshop for the Sun to Moon Gallery. We have a nice group of people and we’re having a great time, but meanwhile, back in Yosemite, another storm is arriving. I won’t get to photograph this one, but did get to photograph the previous one last Monday and Tuesday.
That storm featured a brief, misty clearing on Monday morning, a dusting of snow on Monday night, and a couple of surprises. It began on Sunday night, but early Monday morning the satellite and radar images showed that there might be a break around sunrise before more precipitation arrived that afternoon. So I drove up to Tunnel View early, and sure enough, it did clear. It wasn’t the most colorful sunrise, but there was plenty of beautiful mist, as you can see in this photograph:
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by Michael Frye | Nov 8, 2015 | Travels and Stories
Aspens and reflections, Uncompahgre NF, Colorado. This small, remote pond had a beautiful stand of aspens growing next to it. The trunks remind me of a baleen whale’s teeth.
As I said in this recent post, I had many opportunities to photograph aspens as part of a larger landscape this fall. But of course I photographed more intimate scenes as well, and I’ve included a selection of smaller-scale aspen photographs from Colorado here. Some of these images actually encompass a large geographic area, but I made the somewhat arbitrary distinction of defining an intimate landscape as anything that didn’t include sky.
On our first autumn visit to Colorado last year we split our time between the Kebler Pass/McClure Pass area and the San Juan Mountains. This year we spent the whole time in the San Juans, which allowed us to get to know this area better. There’s always something to be said for that. As you become more familiar with a place, you discover some of the lesser-known locations. You also start to learn the weather patterns, and know where to go at sunrise or sunset when there might be interesting clouds.
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by Michael Frye | Nov 6, 2015 | Announcements
Oaks in an autumn snowstorm, Yosemite; from the 2013 Yosemite Renaissance exhibit
This is a quick post to let you know that the deadline for entering the 31st annual Yosemite Renaissance competition and exhibit is approaching on November 15th. You can find out all the details and enter online here.
This is a great organization and competition, and the opening reception (next February 26th) is always a really fun event. The competition is “intended to encourage diverse artistic interpretations of Yosemite.” I’ve been honored to have my photographs accepted into the Yosemite Renaissance exhibit a number of times, and always felt I was in good company with many wonderful artists in each show. The photograph above was in the 2013 exhibit.
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