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
After shooting at my preferred location this morning, I wandered around the area looking for other scenes to shoot.
I don’t think the many dirt, back roads here have names, but the early morning quiet led me to call this one Serenity Road.
Shooting from another point of view, I thought it would make no difference which way one turned at the T, as either way would let one see more of the awesome geology of this area.
Standing in the shadow of the massive rocks behind me, I watched as the early morning sun began to highlight the top of the rock features in front of me.
I wandered back through and over rocks and boulders to the place of my initial shots this morning. I climbed onto a massive rock and made one last image, wrapping up this sunrise shoot.
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
After shooting from an elevated location here, my son and I drove to the parking lot at the official visitor area and hiked down the steep, icy path to the creek level.
There are signs posted at frequent intervals warning visitors of the scalding hot waters of the creek and to stay at least ten feet from the creek bank and from steam vents.
At about this point and westward, Hot Creek is fed by snow melt before the water enters into the portion fed by hot springs. Anglers fish the waters here and to the west. I’m guessing the fish are smart enough to turn around before getting into the scalding hot water area.
As one of my Flickr contacts pointed out, the hot water was providing clouds for the otherwise clear sky this cold morning.
I stopped to photograph this lone, bent tree with the mist from the hot water behind it as I was hiking back up the trail to the parking lot. This image, which I almost neglected to even process, was chosen for Flickr’s Explore Page May 30, 2024.
That is all for this area. Until next time,
Ken
Prior to sunrise, my son and I hiked back up the steep hillside to the location where we had shot at sunset the prior evening.
I think this pre-sunrise shot is the best that I got this morning. It is very similar to a composition I made the previous evening, except the evening sky was heavy with clouds, while it was almost totally clear this morning.
A sliver of Owens Lake is visible on the horizon. Owens Lake is listed as a “dry” lake, but recent heavy rains over the past two years have resulted in shallow water in the lake.
Sunrise light on the Sierra Nevada Mountains as seen through a gap in rocks in Alabama Hills, California. I had to resort to an HDR for this image, as a the exposure was difficult.
Other than the first image in this post, I was not happy with other images from this morning’s shoot. As I was giving up and retreating down this area, I suddenly noted that the rocks around me were glowing as the early morning sunlight finally began to impinge upon some of the rocks around me. I made this last image to capture a little of that golden hour light.
Until next time,
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
