Fresno Trip - Stage 5 Alabama Hills - Part 2

The next day started early for us.  After brewing a pot of coffee and checking out of the hotel, we headed out to the Alabama Hills.  Unfortunately, finding our tree was much harder in the dark than I expected.  Fortunately, we’d done our usual “let’s make sure we’re there early” thing and it only took me two tries.

Since we were there with plenty of time and the moon was up, we started out with some “night” photography.

That done, we headed over towards the tree and managed to take advantage of the pre-dawn glow to start what turned into a lot of images of the one tree.

We quickly ran into that odd condition, which I discussed in one of my Yosemite posts, where the sky is too bright and the ground too dark for effective photography.  I tried several different images from a variety of locations under those conditions and all were failures.  

As the sun broke over the horizon, I returned to my first location and started photographing again. 

Realizing that the moon was tracking down towards the horizon, I moved over to take advantage of it.

After making the above image, I wasn’t satisfied with the relationship between the mountains behind the tree and the tree itself (Ann was having similar issues).  I kept moving around and always ran into one issue or another.  I ultimately realized that where I wanted to be was on top of a very round, pointy rock that was about 5 feet higher than where I was standing.  

I carefully examined the rock to see if I and my tripod would even fit on top of it (concluding I would), and started stuffing lenses in my pockets and a lens with my different filters into a light satchel I carry in my camera backpack.  I said my tripod and me would fit on top of the rock, not my camera bag.  

In my youth, I would have jumped up and with a nice push of my hands, and landed on the top of the rock with a minimum of effort.  As it was, I jumped up pushed with all my might and rammed my knee and boots into the granite, praying they’d hold.  They did, but by the time I securely on the top of the rock both knees and palms were duly scraped.  I shifted from all fours to my butt and thought, “What am I thinking?”  

Still, it only took me a couple of minutes to get used to balancing on top of a rock and I shifted my feet underneath me.  Now to reach out and grab my camera, which was attached on my tripod.  I lifted it all up, which now gave me three points of contact on the rock and I felt comfortable enough to stand up.  Yup, that’s the view I wanted.

But first, I had to stabilize the tripod and, as you might imagine, I could not spread out the legs as I normally would.  So there I was, standing on the sloping top on the far side of the rock, feet 4 inches apart with a tripod leg between my two legs, and the other tripod legs positioned just in front of my boots.  There was no room for movement.  Period.  I’d have to do everything by feel, and all of the images would be from the exact same location.  Thank goodness I remembered to shove as many lenses as I could into my pockets because I wasn’t climbing down to get them!

Still, it was worth it! 

I liked that from this position you can see the mountains through the branches of the tree, which is what you feel when you’re there, even if you don’t actually see it when looking at the scene from the ground (instead of on top of a rock).  

And given the incredible light and the textures of the subject matter, photographs in black and white are just as stunning as in color (of course, especially the blue skies if you use Ansel’s beloved red filter!). 

And remember, all of these different image framings are a result of using different lenses, all switched while balancing precariously on the top of a rock!

Having exhausted all of the possibilities I could think of from that one position (and not yet broken my neck from a fall), I decided not to press my luck and carefully set my tripod back down onto the ground and ungracefully slid, not lept, down the rock.  Oh, to be young again!

Ann was busy making her way towards the tree, so I decided to move back a bit and hide her behind a rock.

Wanting to take advantage of our short stay here and the raking, early morning light, I finally settled on some bushes that had nestled itself among some rocks.

Ann and I had a 9+ hour drive ahead of us that day, so we started heading back to the car.  

Like usual, we made several stops for photographs because the place is simply incredible for photography.

Especially black and white photography.

I guess that’s why some friends told us we had to check this place out.

This was a scouting trip and we’d only checked out a small part of it, but we’re already planning to come back and photograph some more.  I’m glad we limited ourselves to just one location.  That gave us an ability to see just how much the Alabama Hills has to offer.  Now to explore the rest!

One last photograph of the tree that first attracted my interest, and then we were on our way.

Next stop, Klamath National Wildlife Refuge.