Eastern Sierra Photography Workshop in June: What's in Store?

“The Traveler sees what he sees. The Tourist sees what he has come to see.” G.K. Chesterton

I can only be in one place at a time, so I have to be efficient and pack as much opportunity as I can into my time in the field. Every day has the sun rising and setting. Some weeks have wildflowers. Fall colors may be peaking in a given location for only a few days to a week. The Milky Way is available during a few weeks of the year, a moon rise at sunset or moon set at sunrise about a dozen times each. So I pick a prime season, the most likely peak days and times.

Workshops take me out of the field as I work on permits, itineraries, write descriptions, set up payment / registration buttons, and I perform a some kind of marketing to get them seen, if only a mention or two on social media. I'm not going for volume, and I personally lead all of my workshops, so they are designed to place you in a stunning place, in a peak season, as the exact best time.

The first week of June is amazing for the Eastern Sierra for so many reasons. Some snow remains on the Sierra Nevada (and possibly the White Mountains) to catch alpenglow, and there can be a fresh snowfall around the end of May to refresh that surface. Several species of wildflowers are starting to bloom, profusely in some areas.

This year the new moon and Milky Way shooting timing coincides with this week, and we have the possibility of a late spring storm from the northwest for interesting sunrises and sunsets, or warmer monsoon moisture from the Baja coast that could bring dramatic afternoon clouds, showers and rainbows, or evening thunderstorms.

I used to be nervous about the thunderstorms interfering with night photography, but I've learned through experience in Bodie and the surrounding area that convection-driven storms tend to break up or blow east by the time the sky is fully dark around 10/10:20, so they're really just bonuses for sunset and twilight shooting, even when rain showers interfere locally for an hour or so (and even then they often give way to rainbows).

Tioga Pass may have just opened and we may have interesting iceout conditions on the lakes. More often than not the pass opens in May, so with 89% snowpack, the odds are good for a normal, mid to late May opening. It seems like they often try to wrap up whatever road maintenance is needed in time for an opening for Memorial Day weekend, so I'm going to guess Friday at noon as the official time, but cars line up early and they often let them in around 9 am.

We'll start with a sunrise on Thursday, pursue wildflowers and weather during the day, have an early dinner, and head back out for sunset at Mono Lake.



We'll pick from a number of spots for Milky Way shooting, and arrive by the time it's fully dark at 10:07, when the galactic center of the Milky Way has already risen 6 degrees, perfect for placing it in our compositions.



Friday we'll catch sunrise at Mono Lake before the weekend crowds arrive, shoot different wildflowers, maybe explore some interesting geology or head up to Tioga Pass if its open for snowier views. Another sunset spot, More night photography, and turn in not too late since most of us are continuing on to Bodie the following night, and Bodie interiors the following morning.



Plans are all well and good; I frequently plan something as simple as a sunset moon rise composition weeks in advance.  But landscape photography is about light, so if you're on a workshop, you want a leader have enough depth in detailed regional knowledge to be ready to ditch all plans and react to the weather and light if there's more potential 20 or 30 miles from where you are.  So leave the tourists behind who are stuck to their fixed agenda, and rather than a traveler who reacts to the weather and looks for a place to shoot it, you can travel with a local who knows the opportunities in every direction, and anticipates the conditions before you pick the next destination and hop in the car to arrive there just in time.

Early June in the Eastern Sierra offers an annual convergence of so many factors which could make photography conditions stunning.  Photography is more fun shared, so I can't wait, and all the better that I get to share all of this bounty with old and new friends!



Most of the participants are returning customers, but we have room for one or two more if anyone's interested!





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Route 66 in the Mojave Desert

Roy's Motel Cafe alongside historic Route 66

In the spring months I'm often passing through the Mojave Desert, which puts me on historic Route 66.  There are a number of old houses and businesses along the way, mostly in various states of disrepair, but there's a nice cluster of buildings worth checking out in the small town of Amboy, including Roy's Motel Cafe, the deserted and overgown Amboy School, and a picturesque, if dilapidated, church.

Amboy Crater

Spring is also the time for wildflowers in the desert, so if you catch the timing right, you can see many species like this desert sunflower with Amboy Crater in the background.  Amboy Crater is a couple of miles west of Amboy alongside Route 66, and if it's not too hot you can walk about a mile to the crater itself.  The trail winds its way around black lava flows, which warm up in the sun, so brings plenty of water.

Chuckwalla

If the plants are growing green in the area, keep a sharp eye out for several species of large lizards in the lava, including chuckwallas, which grow to 18" long and nearly 2 pounds in weight.

From Amboy you can travel north to explore Mojave National Preserve and Death Valley National Park, south to explore Joshua Tree National Park, or west to Baker and up the Eastern Sierra.

A short distance to the east of Amboy, the walls of a building have been turned into a canvas for graffiti art.

East of Amboy

This area is covered in my 320-page guidebook to landscape photography in Southern California, coming this September (www.PhotoTripUSA.com).  In the meantime, if you'd like to buy the Northern California guidebook in the series, written by photographer Gary Crabbe, I've placed Photographing California Vol. 1: North - A Guide to the Natural Landmarks of the Golden State" in my recommendations on Amazon.  If you access Amazon through this link, your purchases there will can fund these travels and reports, and the development of my guides: http://astore.amazon.com/jeffsulliphot-20 

Amboy Church

California Landscape Photography Guide Book

Draft cover for my upcoming guide book to Southern California landscape photography

This is the draft cover for my upcoming guide book to landscape photography from Yosemite to San Diego.I started this journey in September 2006, putting whatever belongings I could fit in my SUV and dropping them off at a storage locker, before going on the road with a copy of "Photographing Southwest, Volume 1 - A guide to the natural landmarks of Southern Utah" by +Laurent Martres.  I went on the road full time as my divorce started. Landscape photography, and that book, got me through a lot of rough times in the next few years. In a sense you could say that they saved my life. Imagine my surprise when I started a Mono Lake and Yosemite regional guide, contacted Laurent since he didn't have a California book, and by coincidence he was just about to hire someone to write a book to cover those locations through San Diego!

I spent the next few years living out of the back of my car, returning to spend weeks with my kids, and to bring them out to explore America's incredible landscapes with me.  On one hand it killed me to be separated from them sometimes for weeks at at time, but on the other hand it was crystal clear that the days with them were precious, so I went out of my way to dedicate those days to them, and engage them in the exploration of places of unique geology and geography and almost overwhelming beauty.  I'm very fortunate that they seem to have developed some of the same curiosity and thirst for exploration and adventure that I enjoy.

All my life I've been drawn to nature and landscapes, growing up exploring the woods, ponds, mountains and coast of New England.  Our family hiked the peaks of Colorado and the boardwalks around Yellowstone's geyser basins curing our move to California, where the grand scale of the High Sierra, Mojave Desert and Pacific Ocean begged for attention.  In a sense my explorations over the years leading up to this project mirrored that legacy, as I shared with my children many of the same discoveries that my parents had led me to.  Custody days for me aren't a burden, they're a priceless privilege.  Gaining perspective on what's important in life is something that can never come too soon.  

I could travel the world in search of soaring mountains, searing deserts with massive sand dunes, wave-pounded seashores or forests with astonishingly massive trees, but that's all within a day's drive.  You can search the world or Oz to fill some perceived need, but for anyone lucky enough to have both family and Southern California nearby, there's truly no place like home.