Eastern Sierra Workshop part 5

This morning our destination is North Lake for another sunrise.  It is only our second full day of the workshop, it seems longer with all the different destinations we visited our first day.  We are approximately in the same location as South Lake, which we visited yesterday; just one valley over.

Jack wants us on the road by 5 today.  “There are not many prime photo spots, and we need to get there early”.

Today it is cold, upper 30’s maybe 40 at best.  I put on my wicking T-shirt, long sleeve heavy underwear shirt, regular shirt, warm-up jacket and my raincoat with hood, and a hat as another layer against the wind .  With the exception of my feet and hands I did stay warm.  There was a lot of standing around with my hands in my pockets waiting for the light to come.  We were not the first ones there but we knew where to go, so we were the first ones at the prime spot.  Again having someone that is familiar with the area paid off.  It was dark enough that the only way we knew there were mountains in the area is because that is where the stars in the sky stopped.

About 45 minutes later, as the light started changing another group showed up wanting to move in.  None of us budged, even with the bribe of Starbucks coffee and a donut for a tripod spot.

The light revealed the rugged peaks in the background and the lake framed by the golden aspens in the foreground.  As the light kept changing the lake lit up with the reflections of the mountains and later the trees.  The air and water stayed calm so some great reflections of the trees across the lake made for even better images.  Only one unfortunate thing happened all morning, there were a couple of people across the lake in bright clothes among the aspens.  A few minutes with Photoshop fixed that.

Once the sun was up we went down towards Bishop Creek shooting smaller scale images.  We all took off in different directions looking for scenes that moved each of us.  Somehow I am always looking for shots with water, maybe that’s because I live in a desert.  The reflections of everything just sparkle and it’s hard to pick which one I like best.  We shot here for another hour then agreed to meet in town at a particular time and we could shoot whatever and wherever we wanted, and did.

Our group of four did get back in time to have lunch then visit Galen Rowell’s Mountain Light Photography and Gallery.  It is definitely worth a visit to see his and other artists photography.

After our visit we went back to the hotel to check out and meet in the breakfast room for an image critique.  Jack asked for each of us to pick three of our images for a critique.  It seems that everybody but me had a laptop to work on their images.  I could only look at mine on the 2” screen on the back of my camera and show the raw image, but it was good.  I was happy with my choices and overall I got favorable comments.  As I mentioned to Jack at the start of the workshop, I could either buy a laptop or attend the workshop.  I made the right choice.  Everyone had good to great images.  By the time we got to the last student I could pick up on the little things that detracted from the overall image; a creeper here (something that sticks into the image from the edge that doesn't belong), and a bright spot there which attracts your attention more than it should.

After finishing the critique we jumped into our vehicles for the one hour drive to Lee Vining and Mono Lake.

After checking in at the hotel we took a ride to the south end of Mono Lake to scout out some spots for the next morning.  Being a Saturday night the place was packed.  I just noticed all the tripods moving down to the lake.  There were people everywhere shooting everything.

Mono Lake

I did see one of those ‘other’ photography workshops that I sort of mentioned earlier.  “Okay everyone set your ISO to XXX, your shutter speed to XXX”.  “You should be good to shoot that formation over there”. Click, click, click…

After scouting potential photo spots and catching a sunset a bunch of us went to the Whoa Nellie Diner, in a Mobile gas station.  I never would have gone there on my own but was glad I did.  The place was packed with people waiting to order or get their food.  Not because it was slow, because there were lots of people there just for dinner.  I had the fish tacos, which were great.  The food was so good that we returned again the next night.

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark