#10:  Frozen Falls
Yosemite National Park, California
January 2008

The strongest winter storm in a decade slammed into California during the first week in January. dropping several feet of snow on the Sierra Nevada, including Yosemite.  The valley floor received about a foot and a half of snow.  Since I had never done any winter photography at Yosemite, I decided to head up there after the storm passed.  I left home early on a Sunday morning, arriving at the Arch Rock entrance around 1 p.m.  The storm was still raging over the high country, but the clouds were breaking over the Valley, making for some great photographic conditions.

Early the next morning, I left the warmth and comfort of my room at the lodge and trudged through the snow to a bridge over the Merced River.  I had scouted out this spot the afternoon before, and hoped that the early-morning light would strike Yosemite Falls at the right angle.  It was quite chilly, with some ground fog present when I set up my tripod on the bridge.  But soon, the sun peeked over the southern Valley wall and illuminated Yosemite Falls.

#9:  Curling Green
Curtis, Nebraska
June 2008

In late May, I departed on a three-week storm chasing excursion to tornado alley.  This was the first time I had been storm chasing since moving back to California in 2006, so I was pretty eager to see some good convection.

This storm had developed in far northeastern Colorado and moved into southwestern Nebraska.  It produced a few tornadoes in Frontier county, then set its sights on the town of Curtis.  We decided to leave the dying storms that we had been chasing and head west toward this beast.  When we got to it, the storm was finished with tornadoes, but still had fantastic structure.  The reason I chose this as one of the Top 10 is due to the green color, provided by the baseball-sized hail within the storm.

#8:  Table Mountain Lupine
Table Mountain, near Oroville, California
March 2008

My first wildflower photo trip of the year took me to Table Mountain, a volcanic mesa about 80 miles north of Sacramento near the town of Oroville.  Table Mountain is known for its prolific wildflower display, mainly during late March and April.  The reports indicated that the bloom had started, but was not at peak yet.  But I decided to go up there to check it out and scout for a return trip later in the spring (which never materialized, of course).

I arrived at the top of the mesa in the mid-afternoon and scouted out locations to photograph.  The lupine were blooming nicely all over the mesa, so I tried to find compositions that included their beautiful purple color.  This composition caught my eye quickly, and when several waves of cirrus moved over, I knew I had a winner.  I spent the rest of the day hiking around the area, finding poppies, lupine, and lilies, but found no other composition as striking as this one.

#7:  Serenity
Bishop Creek Canyon, near Bishop, California
October 2008

One of my favorite rituals of the photographic year is a trip to the Eastern Sierra Nevada region of California during the fall.  The canyons that have been cut into the eastern escarpment of this mountain range are filled with aspen trees, and they put on a spectacular golden show in late September through mid-October.

This image was made in the Bishop Creek canyon, which is in the high mountains above the eastern California town of Bishop.  The fall color in this small area is always spectacular, and 2008 was a better year for color here than 2007 was.  I headed up the South Lake road from the main highway, admiring the golden leaves, when I crossed a small bridge over the South Fork of Bishop Creek.  Since the sun had already dropped behind the towering peaks to the west, the light was low enough in the canyon to allow me to use a longer exposure time to blur the water.  This is a classic fall color image that I had been wanting to take for a long time.

#6:  Fiery Sky
Near Lawton, Oklahoma
June 2008

Early in my chase vacation, severe storms were forecast in southwestern Oklahoma.  I really like chasing in that area, thanks to the Wichita Mountains.  This range of hills provides a great landscape backdrop to the often violent skies.  The storm I had chased was dying off, so I headed back east toward Oklahoma City to visit with some friends.  However, I got sidetracked by the brilliant sunset happening behind me.

I pulled off the highway just west of Lawton to find a good place to photograph the awesome mammatus display above.  Luckily, I found a nice, open gravel parking lot that had a great view of the western horizon, complete with the Wichita Mountains.  The colors were just amazing, and the Velvia slide film really made them pop in this image.

The next installment will be ready tomorrow, so stay tuned!

As we move deeper into September, the aspens in the high country are starting to turn.  I’m not doing a big trip for fall color this year, since we’re trying to save as much money as we can for the wedding next June.  But I plan on doing a couple of day trips up to the Carson Pass and Hope Valley areas, maybe going as far as Ebbetts Pass and Monitor Pass.  I’m expecting peak color to be a little earlier this year, thanks to the very dry winter/spring of the past year.

The page is still a work in progress, so stay tuned while I format the page and add links to the individual picture pages.

Hopefully I’ll have some new display pieces next month, but that’ll only happen if the Governator changes his mind.

Tunnel View Drama

Heather and I are hosting a French exchange student for the month of July, so we took her camping at Yosemite. It was just a weekend trip, so there wasn’t much time for photography, but I still fired off two rolls of Provia anyway.

The first day was spent in the Valley, which, in the summer, is about as crowded as Disneyland. After a stop at Glacier Point, we headed back to the campground at Bridalveil Creek for some dinner and S’mores.

The next morning, I walked out of the campground to a flower-filled meadow. The skies were cloudy, so I tried some close-ups of the sunflowers and lupine, but the wind was not cooperative. After returning to camp, the plan was to hike the Mist Trail. However, an impending thunderstorm led us to scrap this idea and instead head over to Mono Lake. On the way down, we stopped at Tunnel View, where construction has greatly reduced the parking space. The light at this time was poking through the clouds, and gave us a very dramatic view of an oft-photographed scene.

Mono Lake, for those who haven’t been there, is a surreal place on the eastern side of the Sierra, near the town of Lee Vining. The lake is famous for the strange formations that are present near its shores, called tufa (too-fah). We walked the loop trail around these photogenic formations, then hit the road back to Sacramento. It was a good trip, even if it was very short.