Picture of the week

Rush Creek Colors

I made another pass through some of my favorite areas of the eastern Sierras this last week (10/20 - 10/22) with fellow photographer John Murray.  We hit many side canyons along the way from the Mono Basin down into the Owens Valley.  Since my last visit about 3 weeks back the Sierra Nevada have recieved a small amount of snow at the higher elevations and some rain in the valleys.  The temperatures were noticeably colder, dropping to about freezing at our first nights camp at the base of Rock Creek.  Although in many areas the aspen are already blown out or brown due to the drought conditions we have endured this year, some nice pockets of colors could be found in some of the wetter areas.  The most noteworthy trees were up Lundy Canyon and along Rush Creek on the June Lakes Loop.  Further north such as Conway summit and Monitor Pass the trees are mostly spent, likewise with McGee and Rock Creeks further to the south.  After seeing the conditions up the canyon at Rock Creek, I decided to skip my usual stops up Bishop Canyon assuming a similar situation.  We also used this trip as also an opportunity to do location scouting for some future photographic endeavors when the conditions will be more ripe.

The majority of the images shown here were taken along Rush Creek, with the exception of the lower left image captured along one of the beaver ponds toward the end of the road for Lundy Canyon.  Mostly cloudy skies muted the lighting, providing more beneficial conditions for mid-day photography.  There were just enough holes in the clouds to allow the sun to pass over the landscape on occasion, providing some more dramatic lighting opportunities if one waited long enough (as shown above). A polarizer was used for most of these captures to help deepen the colors and reduce some of the glare off the leaves.  Camera gear-wise: A Canon EOS 5D mark III with the trusty EF 24-105 L f/4 lens (on a tripod most of the time) was used for the captures.

All content and images are property of Stephen Fischer Photography, copyright 2010-2015.  Last updated: 10/25/2015   ()