Eastern Sierra 2017

My wife Hannah and I recently took a trip to the Eastern Sierra area to scout out fall colors as the season begins to change.

After scouting the area most of the day from Bishop California to as far north as Lee Vining California, I decided to capture the next mornings sunrise at Convict Lake, where the fall colors were just beginning to appear. 

This oblong-shaped lake is encircled by a three-mile long access trail and boxed in by the steep backdrop of the Sierra Nevada, highlighted by the 12,241’ Mount Morrison. Convict Lake was originally carved out by glaciers, and at up to 140’ deep in some places, it’s one of the deepest lakes in the region.

Convict Lake offers great trout fishing and hiking for folks wishing to access the high country. It has also starred in numerous TV commercials and print ads, but it’s most famous for how it got its name.

In the fall of 1871, a posse trapped a group of escaped convicts from Carson City, Nevada, at the lake, then known as Monte Diablo. A shootout ensued and two locals, Robert Morrison and Mono Jim, were killed. Most of the inmates were eventually caught and put to frontier justice. The large peaks above the lake were renamed after the fallen posse members and the lake itself became known as Convict.

Capturing the image:

I was fortunate to capture the image below of Convict Lake, prior to dawn and just after sunrise. That morning it was very windy, creating relatively high waves across the lake. Normally one would be greated by a calm glassy surface in the early morning hours. I did not have a neutral density filter with me in order to capture a long exposure and smooth out the waves, so instead, I took approximately 25 images and then averaged out the water area in Photoshop during post processing. This basically obtained the same results as a long exposure. I used my Nikon D810 camera body with the Nikon 14-24mm Wide Angle lens attached. It was a great feeling being there as the sun came up and the sunlight began hitting the tops of the mountain peaks before descending toward the lakes surface. 

After Convict Lake, we worked our way back down toward Bishop California and headed to Lake Sabrina. Along the way we stopped off at Intake 2, which is a small lake near Lake Sabrina. I was fortunate to find a fisherman who was out in the lake amongst the fall colors. This image was taken with the Nikon D810 and a Nikon 70-200mm lens. It was so peaceful there. 

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to checkout my Blog on the Eastern Sierra trip