Tag Archives: winter

California Winter

Although the pandemic has dampened our air travel, I have not slowed down on my weekend road trips.  Winter is a special time offering unique spectacles.  In Northern California, it is easy to get to snow, as you go towards the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Last month, as I was passing through Groveland, California, I came across this hillside forest.  It had fresh snow, perfect side-lighting and a great pattern of the vertical tree trunks.  I loved the pattern, the contrast and the texture.  A great representation of California’s winter.

This scene was a bit away from me and therefore I used the Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 lens and framed this at about 180mm.  Since the nearest part of the image is already far away, I knew that an aperture of f/11 is enough to meet the depth of field needs.  I bracketed several exposures to finally picked the capture with the right leaning histogram.

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Snow laden forest, Groveland, California, USA

When many things come together …

Grand Canyon Dawn in Winter

Grand Canyon Dawn in Winter

Many things came together that resulted in this image.

  1. Good light.  I almost thought that I would not get good light that morning.  It was dark, cold and cloudy.  However, the clouds just opened up and brought in some great light, just after sunrise.
  2. I found this rock as a foreground to lead the viewers into the image.
  3. There is tremendous depth.  You can examine the details from the foreground to the background and there is enough to see at every stage of your journey.