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Lunchtime Photo

My mini-vacation to the Eastern Sierra produced many pictures, but most of them will have to wait until I get home to edit and process them. However, here's one that I took on my first day. I was facing east, away from the Sierras, as the sun was going down. It turns out there's a few minutes just before the sun dips below the mountains when it's shining brightly on the trees in the foreground but not at all on the hills in the background. This produces a wonderful contrast.

The Eastern Sierras practically beg for black and white, and this picture in particular is far better in black and white than in color. That's true for a lot of the photos I took, though not all of them.

February 15, 2021 — Near Bishop, California

16 thoughts on “Lunchtime Photo

  1. chester

    As a dumb question specialist, I ask is a black and white photo done with the kind of film I used as a child in the fifties, or is it a detuned digital image?
    Ansel would have liked it, I think.

    1. cld

      They microchip the brain of a ghost and trap it in the lens of the camera to create the correct sense of surprise and discovery.

      Without the ghost it's Polaroid.

    2. pjcamp1905

      No film anymore. You take a digital photo and completely desaturate it. If you've got a decent camera, you can set it to record brightness information only and just ignore the fact that certain parts of the sensor correspond to certain colors.

  2. Kevin McAuliffe

    Since he mentions editing and processing, and as it sounds like he is posting these from the road, and since it's 2021, I think we safely assume that he is using a digital camera.

  3. seanathair

    If you’re looking east from Owens Valley you’re seeing the White Mountains or the Inyo Mountains, not the Eastern Sierra mountains. The Eastern Sierra are to the west of Owens Valley.

    1. Kevin Drum

      Right. That's what I said. Or what I think I said, anyway. I was facing east late in the day, waiting for the sun to set below the Sierras behind me.

  4. D_Ohrk_E1

    IDK if anyone else knows this, but if you right-click over KD's photos and select "open in a new tab", you'll see the larger size photo that KD uploaded, and not just the thumbnail version in the post. Also, if you drag and drop it into your desktop, you can read the meta data of the shot he took: 20mm focal length, 1/500 exposure, etc.

  5. MindGame

    That one is a real keeper. It really deserves a high-quality print of a good size, matted and framed, hung in a prominent well-lit spot.

  6. hoipolloi

    Love me some Bishop, California. This picture captures the feel of the place. Check out Benton Hot Springs if you're ever out that way.

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