Frozen High Sierra Lake

Gallery: LandscapePosted January 23, 2012479 views14 comments

No...this is not in Yosemite! Good buddy and freakin' awesome landscape shooter, David Thompson, told me he was going to be in the Sierra over MLK weekend. So we got together for a day of icy lake photos. I had my gloves, boots, hand and toe warmers, ear muffs, long undies, and additional layers of clothes, sweaters and jackets. And I froze my patooties off anyway!!!

Aside from the fact that it was just frickin' freezing below freezing...we had the added task of dealing with winds around 30mph! Poor David slipped and slid, falling about 6 times going after his shots, but thankfully no serious injury. I was not so adventurous and managed to hold my ground, or slab of ice. What an eerie experience listening to the ice "singing" as it moved to the effects of wind and sun. Not so eerie and downright frightening was hearing the loud cracking of ice all around me and actually seeing waves moving below!

All day conditions promised to be epic for sunset, but the high winds soon blew our clouds away and left us with nothing but a glow from the Belt of Venus. Ah, well...I got a couple of shots of a frozen and accessible High Sierra Lake without cover of snow in a record setting winter. I can chalk that off my bucket list feeling content that it's not something I really need to do at any other time in my life because this was really quite enough, thank you!

Comments and critiques welcome!

Comments

14 comments

Comment posted by David Bostedo on January 24, 2012 at 12:05 AM

Neat shot and story Jean! I love some of the details here - the ice, the light on the distant hills... great stuff. I'm not so sold on the overall composition though. It feels like the FG rocks are there just to break up the ice, and don't necessarily have a place in the overall comp of the image. Still really nice overall though.

Registered on May 5, 2006, 178 Posts, 2224 Comments

Comment posted by Tom Hilton on January 24, 2012 at 7:02 AM

Jean, I'll go along with David here,
Really fine shot and excellent description to finish it off.
When I opened it up large, I had about a 50% crop on my screen - that looked very nice.
Either way you have a great shot and a great memory of the day.

Registered on September 19, 2011, 68 Posts, 668 Comments

Comment posted by Phil Pogledich on January 24, 2012 at 12:19 PM

That's some fabulous looking ice...just begging for an abstract. It also works quite well overall in this image though, and the distant peaks look nice indeed. The composition generally works fine for me but I'd probably crop a bit off the bottom...about half of the area below the first rock, or maybe a little less. The saturation of the blue is also quite strong but I'm not necessarily turned off by it. Overall a very nice image.

Registered on August 24, 2009, 123 Posts, 3099 Comments

Comment posted by Dietrich Gloger on January 24, 2012 at 12:26 PM

I like the composition and the light! The fracture patterns look interesting and the color contrast (warm/cold) works well. I think this only suffers a bit from some technical issues. One issue is the distortion: The horizon is quite curved. This can be fixed in PS. The other point is the saturation: The ice looks a tad too blue in my opinion. But that's just a matter of taste obviously.

Registered on January 26, 2007, 360 Posts, 9876 Comments

Comment posted by Harley Goldman on January 24, 2012 at 1:15 PM

Real nice, Jean. I am thinking the ice is a bit blue for my tastes, but as Dietrich points out, that is a matter of taste. Great ice pattern in the foreground.

I hope you got your patooties reattached after warming up.

Registered on November 19, 2003, 586 Posts, 11271 Comments

Comment posted by Rudy Ruberti on January 24, 2012 at 2:11 PM

Very nice image. I can maybe see a slight crop off the bottom, but still very nice. I’m still trying to figure out where this was taken. Lake Mary perhaps? I was hoping to get up to the Sierra (and Tioga Pass) before everything got buried with snow, but I didn't make it. Also, I normally would have about 20 days of skiing in at Mammoth by now, but this year I only have two. With five feet of new snow, it looks like I'll be heading up this weekend.

Registered on October 28, 2008, 179 Posts, 1875 Comments

Comment posted by Kyle L. Krause on January 24, 2012 at 5:02 PM

Nice capture Jean, I was going to meet David on sunday but the winds kept me away. Caples Lake has been great for ice abstract this year, it's been snowing for week,so the lake as about two feet of new snow. For me, there seems to be a lot of blue that over powers the image. Thats an easy one to fix. Nice work.

Registered on June 15, 2010, 29 Posts, 605 Comments

Comment posted by Jean Day on January 24, 2012 at 8:52 PM

Thanks for all the great feedback. As per your suggestions, I pulled a bit of blue out of the ice and cropped a bit from the bottom.

Dietrich, not sure which horizon you're referring to. The lake level and base of the mountains is quite straight. The ice slabs at mid-ground do in fact have a bow to them as they are "floating" above the ice beneath about 6-8 inches. I wanted to get my camera down low enough to show this, but the center post on my tripod was frozen solid!

Registered on April 10, 2011, 36 Posts, 306 Comments

Comment posted by Tom Hilton on January 24, 2012 at 9:19 PM

Jean,
Both original and cropped are really quality shots...
Very well done,
Thanks for posting them.

Registered on September 19, 2011, 68 Posts, 668 Comments

Comment posted by Tony Kuyper on January 24, 2012 at 9:56 PM

Nice comp and textures. I like the repost even better. Much better balance to the light.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 364 Posts, 22328 Comments

Comment posted by Eva McDermott on January 24, 2012 at 10:00 PM

The repost works for me as well Jean. Gorgeous light and detail.

Registered on January 4, 2009, 1015 Posts, 13229 Comments

Comment posted by Genny K. on January 25, 2012 at 2:39 AM

Maybe it's just my screen, but it seems really blue to me. Interesting patterns in the FG ice. I almost like making an abstract out of it by taking off the top and leaving just that neat ice and rocks.

Registered on June 5, 2006, 132 Posts, 2001 Comments

Comment posted by Lon Overacker on January 25, 2012 at 9:31 PM

Jean,

I love your composition - very strong. The details and patterns of the frozen lake contrasted with the warm light make for an enjoyable combo.

I'm not so sure it's the blue that's off - I think more cyan than anything. The repost is looking better, but try reducing the cyan saturation as well.

Lon

Registered on November 24, 2006, 521 Posts, 19147 Comments

Comment posted by Jean Day on January 28, 2012 at 9:31 PM

Thanks again for all the great feedback. This may be one that I will revisit and redo from scratch to remove a bit more of the cyan/blue from the ice.

Registered on April 10, 2011, 36 Posts, 306 Comments