The Many Faces of Mt. Whitney

The second morning of the Eastern Sierra Workshop found us at Mt. Whitney, picking up where we had left off the day before. We had scouted this sunrise location and got setup before the alpenglow began to glow. This trip was the first when I'd seen alpenglow and it is the beginning of Mt. Whitney's transformation from night to day. I've put together a series of images, all taken from the same general area, that shown Mt Whitney awakening to a new day.



Alpenglow was making it's glorious appearance in the first two images. A reddish glow is cast across the mountain peaks before the sun makes it's appearance.



Alpenglow had diminished and the sun is casting it's shadow on the mountain.



A few minutes later and the mountain takes on a bold reddish glow.



As the sun continued to rise the mountain looses is first light redness and begins to show it's striking daytime presence.



It doesn't take long before all the color is gone and Mt. Whitney is proudly standing above all other peaks in the lower 48.

Roger

Mt Whitney

The first shooting day of the Eastern Sierra Workshop was spent in the Lone Pine area. The most notable feature in this area is Mt. Whitney. At 14,505 feet it is the tallest peak in the lower 48 states. This first image is shot from the arch in the Alabama Hills. The Alabama Hills is an amazing area of rocky formations in the Owens Valley below Mt. Whitney. Hollywood has loved this location over the years having made 400 plus movie and TV programs. Mt. Whitney is featured thru the arch with Alpenglow illuminating it's face.



The wind really picked up as the day wore on. Even though it was very bright I wanted to blur some of the clouds streaming by. The Singh-Ray Vari ND is perfect for this allowing me to extend my shutter speed up to 20 or 30 seconds. It's quite challenging holding back that much light since you have to compose the image before cranking down the neutral density as the image in the viewfinder goes black. The trees in the foreground are also being affected by the strong winds and have gone blurry as well.



As the day progressed and the heat rose to 100 we made an escape to Whitney Portal. Whitney Portal is the trail head for the climb to Mt. Whitney's summit. Water is rapidly running down the mountain here and capturing it requires isolation. The previous and following images show the power and force of the water yet it's simple elegance.



I really enjoy the simplicity and elegance of this image.



The day ended with a spectacular sunset. We stopped on the road down from Whitney Portal to photograph the sunset. I shot a couple of HDR sequences but without Photomatics I'm not able to process them. But this image give the feeling of being there with us.

Roger

Cruising Grand Portage Bay

After a very early rise for sunrise on the 3rd, 2am, Travis and I went back to his house. He hadn't really had his boat out on Lake Superior yet, other than going from the marina to his boat ramp. He discovered a gas leak during that short trip and hadn't had time to replace the hose. But morning he replaced the hose and we went for a ride over to Pete's Island, as the locals call it, officially it is Grand Portage Island. This was the first time I'd ever been out on the lake and I was struck by the clarity and beauty of the water. It was such a beautiful day.



We strolled the rocky beach and found the best skipping rocks I've seen in my life. Pete's Island used to be the center of shipping to the village of Grand Portage before roads were put in. Grand Portage Bay is so shallow the supply ships could not dock on the main land so a huge dock was build, along with the necessary buildings, on Pete's Island with the village supplies being offloaded there. There are still huge footings under water the last remains of what once was a large operation.



I was in good hands, in these very frigid waters, with the capable Captain Novitsky at the helm.



We ended our morning tour at the Little Spirit Cedar Tree. As we approached the shore I kept a keen eye out looking for the Spirit Tree. From the water it blends in well to the background even so I was able to pick it out pretty easily. Capt. Novitsky navigated the vessel close to the rocks and I was able to capture this image that would have not been possible from land. It was quite the treat to see this sacred place from the water where it has been observed for some 300 years or more.

Back to land we headed. Travis had to be at work at 10:00 that morning and I had to get back to Grand Marais to get some sleep. Yes, I felt for Travis having to go to work while I slept especially since we were to meet up again that evening and do some more shooting.

Roger

Star Trails from top of Mt. Josephine

The evening of July 4, Travis and I hiked to the top of Mt. Josephine to shoot fireworks and stay for sunrise the following morning. This gave me an opportunity to try a new method, for me, shooting star trails. After a couple of test exposures I set my shutter release to take a series of consecutive 5 minute exposures. The idea is to merge the resulting images together into a single image adding little by little to the trail of the stars with each succeeding image.

The last few evening I have been using a number of techniques to blend these images together. Some methods like Helicon Focus, OK don't laugh - you never know if it isn't going to work unless you try it and how many people have tried this, turned out to be a real disaster. I used a couple of methods in Photoshop using Lighten blending mode then another more involved method using Lighten and Screen blending mode. Each method left some artifacts that weren't pleasing to me.

Then last night I tried a little standalone program called Image Stacker. It's very simple, fast and quite inexpensive, $17, for what it does. I still need to play with it since some of the artifacts from the Photoshop method are present with Image Stacker. I need to make some prints to see if these artifacts show up in a print. I suspect in a smaller print they will not be noticeable but may show with something larger.

If you remember back to the 4th there was a nice moon in the eastern sky. These exposures were started at 1:42am so there was alot of light in the sky, not the best situation for star trails. This image consists of 17 5-minute exposures spanning 85 minutes. I'm looking forward to trying this process close to a new moon, with a dark sky, and let it run for hours.

Roger

Glorious Sunrise

Last weekend started off with a very early sunrise at the Little Spirit Cedar Tree. I had gotten up to the campground at around 9:30 and after unloading the car it was after 10pm when I got to bed. The alarm was set for 2am giving me enough time to have a bite to eat and meet my friend Travis at 3:30. Sunrise wasn't until after 5:00 so we had plenty of early light. And oh what light that was.

This was just the first of a weekend full of wonderous sights, sounds, smells and experiences.



The first image was made with a 17-40mm lens at 19mm, ISO 100, 13 sec at f/22. The second, same lens and ISO 23mm for 2.5 sec at f/8.


Roger