Leon Turnbull Photography

“Oh look, dear. Aspens. Let’s stop, shall we? ” Thus went the conversation I had with my camera as I drove back down the hill from my sunrise shoot of Donner Lake. I know, I am strange. But hey, what can I say. There was a lovely little grove of Aspens right beside the road, and they were showing off their bright Fall colors. I was actually hoping to find something like this in the area, but I wasn’t sure I would be able to find it. I wanted to get a shot of Aspens with Donner Lake in the background. And here it was. Perfect.

But it wasn’t a cake walk to get this shot even though the Aspens were right beside the road. That was part of the problem. I didn’t want to get any part of the “road” in my composition. There were two different roads that I found to be in the way. There was also a large construction vehicle. My only good choice was to take a vertical composition and zoom in to isolate out those unwanted elements. I think the shot works pretty well. The other problem was that I had to scramble from the road up through the brush and the Aspen trees in order to get above them, to shoot back down towards the lake. It wasn’t a cake walk. But I did it.

On Saturday, our family plan was to go to Chico for lunch to celebrate my mother-in-law’s birthday. Since we had to drive two vehicles up there anyway, I thought of a good personal plan, that I would get up early and go out for sunrise somewhere, then drive to Chico from there. Donner Lake seemed like a good choice. The problem was, I didn’t know when I needed to be in Chico. I asked my wife on Friday night, what time is lunch on Saturday ? “Umm, I don’t know that yet. Sean and Marci [bro-in-law and wife] are on baby time now. We’re just playing it by ear.” Okay …. well, I need to know what time I need to be in Chico, in order to determine when I need to leave Truckee tomorrow morning. So anyway, on Saturday morning, I got up bright and early (4:30am) and drove out to Donner Lake for sunrise. Afterwards, I toodled around the Truckee area, trying to find some nice locations to shoot some Fall Colors. I called my wife again later on in the morning. What time is lunch ? “I still don’t know that. I haven’t heard anything yet.” Okay, great hunny. You call your mom and find out. Then call me back. I’m gonna go to another photo location. A little later, she called back. “Lunch is at 11:30 at La Hacienda.” 11:30 ?!?!?!?!? In order to be in Chico at 11:30, I would need to leave Truckee at 9AM. It is now 9:30AM. I am going to be 30 minutes late. See you at noon. Love you. Now here’s the funny part. I arrive in Chico at noon, just when I said I would get there (even though traffic was horrible). But I beat my wife there! I thought lunch was at 11:30, dear ? “Umm, yeah. Something like that.”, she says. It would’ve been super funny if I had beat everyone else there as well. Not quite, but Sean and Marci arrived there only barely before me.

As for Donner Lake sunrise, well it was utterly fabulous. It didn’t look that way though at first. Even though the forecast called for partly sunny skies with light cloud cover, it was completely overcast when I left Folsom in the morning. Not good. As my friend Brian would say, it looks like we will be “gray balled” for sunrise. I even thought of turning around and going back to bed! But … I decided to continue on. I wouldn’t be able to fall back to sleep anyway. As I got up to Donner Summit, I could see that maybe it might be a nice sunrise after all. There was already some color starting to show in the sky. I drove up the old Donner Pass highway up to the bridge and turnout area, scrambled down the rocks to a good looking spot, got out my camera, and promptly started taking many photos. It was a beautiful, glorious sunrise indeed.

At the end of Fallen Leaf Lake is a nice little grove of Aspen trees. We set off into the trees to try to find some nice photo opportunities. Unfortunately, they weren’t as colorful as I had hoped they would be, and a lot of the leaves had already fallen off the trees. I was bummed about that.

I always seem to have troubles finding compositions that I like whilst amongst the trees. I kept heading further and further off the path into the trees in search of something I could take a photo of. I totally lost sight of my friend Rob for a good while. I think he must’ve thought I’d been eaten by a bear or something. Finally, I found a decent photo opportunity that I liked.

I was making fun of Rob for carving his initials on Aspen trees when he was a kid. How environmentally unfriendly! We saw quite a bit of that on the trees at Tahoe (though not on these trees far off the beaten path into the woods). It definitely is rather ugly. Later, in the Taylor Creek area we saw a sign telling people not to carve on the trees. It shortens their lifespan amongst other things. Rob highly doubted that it shortens their lifespan, and I would tend to agree with him. In the grand scheme of things, I guess writing on trees is not all that horrible. People do much worse things than this to the environment. So you’re forgiven, Rob. 😉

After sunrise at Emerald Bay, Rob and I headed over to Fallen Leaf Lake. This is where I really wanted to be for sunrise. I knew there were Aspen trees at the end of the lake, and I had envisioned a fabulous image with first light on Mt. Tallac, with the lake and colorful Aspens in the foreground (and a great reflection too). We were snubbed on three fronts. Firstly, a big dark, ominous cloud hung over Mt. Tallac like a wet blanket. As you can see in the photo, only the bottom part of the mountain was showing; the peak is up there somewhere, but I sure can’t see it. Secondly, it was rather windy which prevented any good reflections to be seen on the lake. And thirdly, the Aspen trees at the end of the lake were not in full color. We both were rather bummed about that. I had expected this weekend would be the prime weekend at Lake Tahoe for viewing Fall Colors. And actually, when we went over to Taylor Creek a bit later, the trees there were much more colorful (we should have gone there first!), but the ones at Fallen Leaf Lake were listless, and a lot of the leaves were already falling off due to the cold and wind.

So anyway, we walked right to the end of the lake, across the bridge, and walked through the mud on the other side to get right in front of the Aspen trees and the mountain. I tried to get out as far as I could without getting wet. I was standing on some precarious rocks in the lake to take this photo. Rob was watching close with his camera at the ready in case I slipped and fell into the lake. But I did the same when he tried an identical stunt a bit later. I think we were both disappointed that the other person didn’t end up in the drink. That’s just no fun.

I headed up to Lake Tahoe this past weekend with my friend, Rob. Our plan was to shoot Fall colors and hit Fallen Leaf Lake at sunrise. But I guess God had another idea for us. The weather report was “iffy” at best, calling for snow overnight, then “partly sunny” skies at around sunrise, then clouding over with more snow later on in the morning. And very cold cold cold. We decided to take a chance and go up there anyway, despite the probability of frost bite. When we arrived at Tahoe, Mt. Tallac was socked in, nowhere to be seen. My envisioned shot of Tallac and Fallen Leaf Lake was not in the forecast. But sunrise over Emerald Bay, on the other hand, looked a lot more promising. There were a lot of clouds over the lake but they were more broken up. We decided to head over there, and we were not disappointed. It was a glorious sunrise, as the rising sun colored the ominous but scattered clouds in the distance. But it was darn cold, about 20 degrees with a cold wind to boot. I was all bundled up in my winter gear and gloves, so I was pretty peachy. But Rob forgot his gloves at home, so I imagine he had some troubles pressing the shutter button as the sun rose up above the horizon. I hope he got at least one good shot in. 🙂