The Beauty of Bishop

Although I’ve done quite a lot of work on east-side Sierra Nevada projects in California, I’ve never spent a lot of time in Bishop. I have only ever driven through on the way somewhere else. Bob recently had some work in Bishop, so we made the trip from Washington State in our camper van.

While Bob worked, I drove around the area looking for opportunities to practice my photography. Since I got a nice camera back in November, I figured I should learn how to use it and have taken two online community college courses as well as watching quite a few how-to videos. In the photo below, I looked in the rear view mirror and thought, “THAT would make a cool photo!” So I pulled the van over, jumped out, and took several photos from the middle of S. Round Valley Road. Luckily S. Round Valley Road doesn’t have a lot of traffic, although I ran back out of the street and checked for oncoming cars between each photo. I did have a fire engine drive slowly past right as I began, but they didn’t seem too concerned about the crazy lady running in and out of the road, so I continued. The online classes strongly suggest taking landscape photos with a tripod, but I didn’t feel this would be prudent.

Mount Tom and Wheeler Ridge from S. Round Valley Road, Bishop

Sigma 24mm F1.4 DG DN Art lens

ISO 100 f/16 1/40 s - polarizing filter - cropped post-processed using iPad Photo

It was a bright, sunny day and I didn’t manage to get out of the motel room until well after the morning “golden hour” that was recommended in all my classes. This gate caught my attention and this was what I considered the best out of thirteen photos I took of it. I ended up lying on the ground to get the mountains in the background through the bars.

This gate has had a hard life

Sigma 24mm F1.4 DG DN lens (ISO 100 f/16 1/60s)

The next day was cloudy, so I thought I would go back to S. Round Valley Road and try the same shot again. This time there was no traffic at all while I was there and I decided it would be ok if I did try my tripod. I still carried everything out of the road in between shots.

Same mountains, same road, almost the same place, same lens, next day

ISO 100 f/16 1/60 s - same polarizing filter because I forgot to take it off

Cropped and edited in iPad Photos and Lightroom

I noticed an old house that looked fairly photogenic - and sad. It has had a harder life than the gate. I took quite a few photos from different angles and with different lenses. I didn’t like many of them because of the power lines, so I wandered around the perimeter of the field until I could get a shot that didn’t include them.

This was the one I personally liked best

Tamron 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3 lens

IS0 800 158mm f/5.6 1/160 s

There was also a photogenic old barn right outside of town. It too had the ubiquitous power line problem…. I started out with my wide-angle lens and switched to my telephoto lens. One of the things one of my online course instructor said was that if you don’t like the photo, just move a few feet. I moved about 100 feet, and got a photo I liked without power lines and with the Sierras in the background.

This photo had a bit more of the mountains and the silos (WITHOUT power lines!)

Tamron 70-300 f/4.5-6.3 lens

ISO 320 70mm f/16 1/80 s