This photograph is from a backpacking trip that I took during the Labor Day break in 2005.  Jim, Mandy, Diane and I head up to the Eastern side of the Sierra, just outside of Bishop for a few days in the high mountains.

The trip started with a pretty good drive up to the trail head and from there we continued to hike up and over a pass (at just about 12,000 feet) which got us into this large basin surrounded by beautiful Sierra peaks.  We spent a few days wandering around the basin and then Mandy, Diane and I head back to the cars while Jim took off for the first leg of his High Sierra traverse.

This image was taken in the morning, well after sunrise but early enough that there are still some shadows across the landscape.  I used my Nikon digital D70 SLR with a standard zoom lens.  One of the beauties of long focal length photos is that you don’t need a big professional lens to capture the image.  Most lenses will do a nice job at f/11 or f/16 - and this was taken at f/9 which falls well within the lens’ ability to capture a sharp image.  This meant that I could take a smaller lens, which is always appreciated on these trips up to the mountains.

I like the composition of this image, with the rock in the foreground creating a strong anchor and really emphasising the distance captured in the frame.  The lake and grass in the midground allow the eye to follow up to the mountains in the distance with their shrinking glaciers at their feet.  The shadows cutting across the mountains help define the peaks and valleys in the mountain faces.

This was a beautiful place to hike, much like the rest of the Eastern Sierra trips that I’ve taken, and I hope to get back here one day soon.

For more images from this trip, you can visit the Backpacking the Eastern Sierra pages, and for more Sierra Nevada vistas, just click on the Sierra Nevada keyword found with any of the relevant photos.

As an aside, I’ve taken a bit of a hiatus from the weekly photo entries during the summer as I’ve recouped from my Africa trip and spent time updating other aspects of the website.  As is always the case, I haven’t gotten around to updating everything that I wanted, but hopefully I’ll be able to kep up with the weekly postings a little better..