More scouting photos in Alabama Hills, California, March 2024.
Ok, this vandalized arch is called “Surprise Arch” (I think), but it looks more like the Pillsbury Doughboy.
I’ll have more iPhone images in the next post, but from an area well outside of Alabama Hills, so stay tuned,
Ken
And even more iPhone scouting photos in Alabama Hills, California.
This monochrome version of an iPhone photo was chosen for Flickr’s Explore page July 25, 2024. The bright white clouds behind the arch draws the eye to the arch. Against a clear, bland sky, a photo of this arch would be much less interesting, maybe even boring.
I called this natural rock feature “The Head”, because it looks like a head on a neck looking across the broad valley into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, maybe thinking it would be cooler to be in those mountains, under a blanket of snow, rather than stuck down here forever.
The arch on top of the weathered, massive rock outcrop is called The Eye of Alabama Hills.
From this view point, The Eye feature reminds me of a big eyed puppy draped over its owner’s body, peering into its master’s eyes.
Thanks for following my posts,
Ken
After our early morning sunrise shoot, my son and I went on another short scouting expedition.
Of course, I made a few shots during our little hike, scouting the area for possible sunrise or sunset shoots, but the two in this post are the only ones that I deemed presentable.
Until next time,
Ken
Early this morning we were at a location that we had previously scouted near some interesting pointy rocks for sunrise photography.
The first images here are pre-sunrise and a few minutes later the light is totally different.
These are the pointy rocks that look like guardians over the valley, standing at attention for the coming sunrise.
After shooting from behind these rock features, I began to wander around the area, looking for other photo possibilities, but you will have to come back again to see how that search turned out.
Until then,
Ken
After our morning shoot at the Hot Creek Geothermal Area, we returned to Alabama Hills, with no clue about where to shoot at sunset. So we drove around looking for someplace inspiring our imagination. We failed with the inspiration and finally settled upon the location for the movie Gunga Din, simply because we had no more time to scout around.
There are still a few remnants from the movie set, where a bridge had been constructed over a ravine.
I don’t know how these gears were used, but there were at least a couple of these embedded in or near the roadway.
There were some concrete items, which I assume were anchors for the bridge, in some of the rocks near the roadway.
I wandered around the area looking for potential sunset shots, finding little inspiration, but I did get a few images that I liked.
And that’s it for this shoot. We have a plan for tomorrow morning, so stay tuned to see how that works out.
Ken
For our sunset shoot on March 18, 2024, my son and I hike up a steep hillside near a feature known as The Eye of Alabama Hills. (I only have iPhone images from exploring around the Eye, which might be included in another post later).
It was a cloudy evening, which is both good and bad for photography. Good in having an interesting sky, bad for getting the best golden hour light on landscape features.
Cloudy Evening was chosen for Flickr’s May 13, 2024 Explore page.
After this evening’s shoot, we decided that this location might be good for sunrise the next morning. Stay tuned to see how that turned out,
Ken
As I’ve said many times, early morning landscape photography is the best for a number of reason, but especially for being alone on location. Most casual tourists and visitors to a popular location, seldom get out and about in the early morning hours, so we seldom have to worry about people popping into our shots.
The first images here are long exposure, pre-sunrise photos. There is just a little pink color beginning to show on the distant horizon.
Shooting from the rounded rocks in front of the arch, made using a tripod very difficult for getting down low, so I ended up shooting hand held, using a higher ISO to get my shutter speed high enough to counter my hand shake.
I shot many images at this location today and could include more, but these are representative of the morning’s scene. Having those magnificent, early morning clouds was a bonus for shooting today.
Until next time,
Ken
After hiking the Mobius Arch Loop, we continued our photographic scouting in Alabama Hills, seeking out the better known features first.
This arch is so named because it is supposed to look like a boot. Maybe the base looks a little like a boot, but I’m not quite seeing this strongly enough to have it so named.
I can partly see the naming of this arch, but I’m thinking another name like “Lobster” or “Crayfish” might be more suitable, especially when other view points are considered.
Those foreground rock features look more like lobster claws to me.
After today’s scouting, we have several possibilities for returning to at sunset and sunrise.
Until then,
Ken
Upon arriving at the Mobius Arch, we began to work around it checking out various photographic compositions. I suspect every possible view point of this arch has been photographed many times in all sorts of weather conditions, so the prospect of achieving any unique photo here is remote at best.
These final two image are views through the arch towards the east. The most impressive views all seem to be towards the west.
More Alabama Hills scouting next,
Ken
This is a continuation of our first morning in Alabama Hills, California.
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Note: After migration of my blog site to another hosting provider, there are ongoing problems with the migration. I am finding (hopefully) temporary work arounds, so that I can resume posting, until a permanent fix for the website problems are found.
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I began to realize early in this scouting outing that photographing the scenes here would be more challenging than I had anticipated. The scenery was spectacular, but the foreground tended to be so immense and dominant as to become a distraction for letting the eye get past it into the rest of the photo. And those mountains! The Sierra Nevada mountains were domineering as background, seemingly demanding to be included in every shot. As a result, I’m not overly pleased with many of my photos, even those that I choose to present here.
Fortunately, there were often cloudy days, so the sky was not bland.
The images in this post have embedded links that will take the reader to that image in my WordPress Image Library. The photo captions are links that will take the reader to that photo on my Flickr page.
To be continued,
Ken
