Leon Turnbull Photography

This past weekend my sister flew down from Canada to San Francisco to run in the Nike Women’s Marathon (she did the half marathon). On Saturday, I drove down to the big city to meet up with her and spend the afternoon with her.

She wanted to go to the King Tutankhamun exhibit at the De Young Museum, so that is what we did. It was crazy busy there, and they herded us through the exhibit like cows. I also was carrying my big heavy camera bag with me (I brought it in hopes of catching a sunset later), and they made me carry it in my hands down below my waist. Crikey, that was tiring walking through the exhibit like that. All in all, the exhibit was fairly interesting, but we were both quite disappointed that they did not have any of the major burial items from his tomb; mostly, it was just small items that were found in the tomb.

Afterwards, we drove over to the Sutro Baths ruins, which were nearby. These are the ruins of an old bath house along the ocean front. We saw a great blue heron fishing along the water. My sister thought it was dead (or stuffed) because it did not move a muscle for five minutes or more. Even when I went down close to it with my camera, it did not budge an inch (usually, those things fly away if you get too close to them). Finally, it did move and she believed me that it was alive (I was wondering myself for awhile there).

It was still early, but Tania wanted to get back to the hotel for an early dinner and rest for the big race the next day. So I dropped her back at the hotel, then drove back to the Sutro Baths for sunset. There were plenty of people around the ruins so I could not find a good place to set up my camera. I walked down the beach, up on some rocks, and found a place all to myself where I could enjoy the view. And it was a glorious sunset, probably the most incredible sunset I have ever seen at the coast (and I thought I had used up all my sunset quota for the year with that Bonsai Rock sunset a couple months ago – I guess not, thanks God!). The reds were amazingly intense, this shot is not enhanced in any way. I just wish I had used my wider lens for this shot, which I didn’t think about until afterwards. Argh. Anyway, after enjoying the show, I climbed down off the slippery rocks, then got completely drenched by a big wave. Fortunately, I had a change of clothes in the car for the long drive back to Folsom.

From our weekend trip to Lee Vining … on Saturday morning, Neal, Luke, and I got up at the crack of dawn to go photograph Silver Lake at sunrise. Tara and the kids slept in of course. I had seen nice images of this lake at sunrise, and it was high on my list of places in the area to photograph. I was hoping for some nice clouds and even snow on the mountains. No clouds of course. There was a hint of snow left over from the first storm of the season, but not really enough.

As for Fall Colors, well Silver Lake probably had the most color out of all the places we visited over the weekend. Still it was mostly greenish-yellow on the Aspens, but there was some nice yellow trees as well.

Here’s another view:

Still on Lee Vining Creek, after Aspen Falls we scooted up the road to Big Bend Falls. This one is a little harder to get down to see. My wife and Nekoda stayed in the car (while Nekoda finished her dinner), and I took Jadon and scrambled down to the creek (Neal and Luke also went down of course). Big Bend Falls is a somewhat difficult waterfall to photograph. Although I didn’t get wet at Aspen Falls, I did get wet for this one, taking off my boots and getting right into the middle of the creek to take this photo. It was cold! I didn’t bring my water shoes unfortunately, or I might have gotten even deeper. It was just me and my bare feet. And Jadon laughing at his old man.

It is difficult to plan in advance a get-away weekend to the Eastern Sierra in the Fall because you don’t really know when the Fall colors will peak. Especially if you are coming from Australia.

Such was the case for us this year. My friend Neal from Aussieland was making his annual trip to California this fall, and we were joined by his friend Luke, and my family as well. Neal was really wanting to see some great Fall colors in the Eastern Sierra this year. but it has not been a good year for Fall Colors in the west (not just California, all over the western U.S. has been bad this year). The Aspen trees have been very slow to turn this year, and some just did not turn from green at all. Perhaps it is due to the drought we’ve had the last 2 years? or the very hot September we had? or an early freeze? or all of the above? I don’t know the reason, but I do know it is a sub-par year for Fall Color in California.

Of course we didn’t know that when we made plans in September to spend an October weekend in Lee Vining. Another thing we didn’t know (of course) is what the weather would be like. And unfortunately, the weather did not co-operate fully.

We did not even bother going to photograph Mono Lake. There were no clouds in the sky pretty much all weekend. Though I do not have a good photo of Mono Lake, and I do indeed want one in my portfolio, but there needs to be good cloud and light, or it is just not worth it to me. (especially when Mono Lake would be jam packed with photographers at sunrise and sunset all weekend).

Neal felt the same way about Mono Lake, so we avoided it like the plague all weekend. Instead, we went to other spots to photograph Fall Colors, and in fact, I think we came away with quite a few dandy photographs. I was pleased overall with the amount of good shots I obtained, and we were able to avoid crowds for most of the weekend.

The first stop that Neal wanted to make was Lee Vining Creek and the cascades that are on this creek. There are a couple small waterfalls on Lee Vining Creek, and I was very surprised at how well they were flowing this late in the year. The canyon gets no sun late in the afternoon either, so the shade made for some good photograph possibilities for the waterfalls.

This is the first waterfall we went to, called Aspen Falls. In order to make this photo, I climbed out on a big log in the middle of the creek, then tried to set up my tripod in a sturdy position to take the photo. I’m not sure what Neal and Luke were thinking about my crazy antics, but I think my family was wondering if I’d be falling off that log into the creek. As it turned out over the course of the weekend, I realized Luke was probably more insane than myself; Neal was probably the only sane person out of the three of us.

Here’s another shot from my beautiful evening at Wrigh’s Lake. Same composition, but this was taken about 30 minutes or so before my previous image. The only thing that would make this better would be if those trees around the lake were brightly colored Aspen trees instead. Oh well.

Speaking of Aspen trees, we spent this past weekend searching for Fall colors at Lee Vining in the Eastern Sierra, and I came away with a number of good images from the trip. I was quite pleased even though the Fall colors this year have been hugely below par for California standards. I’ll have plenty of posts to share in the coming days. Stay tuned.