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Top 5 Final Results - Featured Thread of the Week
1: "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"	9	15%
2: Four B&W from the Faroe Islands	6	10%
3: A different view of Eureka Dunes	6	10%
4: A storm is brewing.	4	7%
5: Dream Lake sunrise	4	7%
Total Votes	61	100%

"Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

gdanmitchell
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

Congratulations to gdanmitchell for winning Feature Thread of the Week with 9 votes - View Previous Winners

"Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

One more, likely the last, in this series. This was almost the last exposure on this evening of amazing sky and light, and as the blue hour came on I lengthened exposures to several seconds so that I could work in the dusk light.

(Several others from this series were posted here recently.)

Dan

Edited on Jul 27, 2022 at 12:14 PM · View previous versions

Jul 26, 2022 at 10:05 AM

agvogel
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

Amazing, Dan - love how you captured such a wide foreground without a single distracting element.

Jul 26, 2022 at 10:07 AM

junglialoh
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

Beautiful composition indeed

Jul 26, 2022 at 03:55 PM

Jim Dockery
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

Beautiful. Love the smooth curving sweep of the water.

Jul 26, 2022 at 06:54 PM

Starfire8
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

A very pleasing composition, Dan. Love the "UFO" cloud in the sky! :-)) What a peaceful, beautiful location!

David

Jul 27, 2022 at 09:57 AM

gdanmitchell
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

agvogel wrote:
Amazing, Dan - love how you captured such a wide foreground without a single distracting element.

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junglialoh wrote:
Beautiful composition indeed

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Jim Dockery wrote:
Beautiful. Love the smooth curving sweep of the water.

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Starfire8 wrote:
A very pleasing composition, Dan. Love the "UFO" cloud in the sky! :-)) What a peaceful, beautiful location!

David

To all four of you, thanks!

I had actually scoped out this specific spot and composition months earlier and filed it away in my mental archives under "go here if there are clearing storm clouds late in the day." I was back a few months later on this evening when, indeed, clouds were clearing and lenticular clouds were forming over the crest in the afternoon. I headed straight to "that spot" — literally a specific rock on the bank of the river — and set up and photographed through the transition until it became almost dark.

I picked this spot for several reasons: the uninterrupted view of the main peaks, the taller trees on the right to add some balance, and the wide sweep of the foreground river.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the conditions, the "Sierra Wave" forms over and east of the Sierra Nevada crest when the conditions are right. It can be one gigantic lenticular-type cloud that stretches many miles, or it may produce smaller stacked lenticular over the peaks as in this case. Perhaps surprisingly, these are some of the most stable clouds you'll ever photograph — since they are created by the underlying land forms, they tend to stay exactly where they form while gradually changing shape. The general clouds here stuck around for a couple of hours at least!

Dan

Jul 27, 2022 at 12:13 PM

Ross Martin
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

Dan, thank you for having a restrained hand in processing, for preserving a natural aesthetic of nature. Your photographic vision and care in development often remind me of the great Charlie Cramer. I look forward to all of your image posts.

Best,
Ross

Jul 27, 2022 at 03:02 PM

gdanmitchell
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

Ross Martin wrote:
Dan, thank you for having a restrained hand in processing, for preserving a natural aesthetic of nature. Your photographic vision and care in development often remind me of the great Charlie Cramer. I look forward to all of your image posts.

Best,
Ross

Ross, that is pretty much the highest compliment you could give me. I'm very grateful!

Charlie is a good friend. (He actually played piano at our wedding many years ago!) I know that many photographers who influenced him have also influenced me, directly in some cases and through him in others. (He was one of the last of Ansel's proteges in the 1980s.)

There's one particular story I tell about his influence on me. I'll keep it short. When I switched to digital, the transition went well in many ways, but my digital printing was not reaching the level I hoped for. I called Charlie to ask whether there was a workshop or class he would recommend. His reply: "Come on over and bring some files."

He spent a few hours on the images with me, teaching and explaining as only Charlie can, and sharing his thinking and workflow. To this day, I'm convinced that I learned about 90% of what I needed to learn about printing in that session.

Dan

Jul 27, 2022 at 06:54 PM

jcw1982
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

Beautiful photograph Dan! I love the soft, subdued lighting. The cloud formations are pretty awesome in their own right also. Well done.

Jul 27, 2022 at 07:15 PM

Ross Martin
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

That is so awesome Dan! I took a printing workshop from him ten years ago.

Jul 27, 2022 at 08:00 PM

gdantemp
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

jcw1982 wrote:
Beautiful photograph Dan! I love the soft, subdued lighting. The cloud formations are pretty awesome in their own right also. Well done.

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Ross Martin wrote:
That is so awesome Dan! I took a printing workshop from him ten years ago.

(NOTE: This is gdanmitchell. I'm posting from a temporary account at this point. Something went wrong and I don't currently have access to my FM "gdanmitchell" account. I have a message out to Fred Miranda to try to get some help regaining access to that account.)

Thanks to both of you. While lenticular clouds happen somewhat frequently in along the Sierra crest, these were really special.

Ross, that's great. Charlie knows SO much stuff about photography and how to see photographically, and I've learned a lot from him. His mastery of printing, both technically and aesthetically, is unsurpassed.

In the before-times prior to the pandemic we were part of a small group with Charlie, Oliver Klink, Vidya Kane, and a few others that met regularly at our Bay Area homes to review and critique one another's recent print work. I've also been fortunate to join the First Light group's Sierra backcountry trips for over a decade with the group — though unfortunately those have also been curtailed by the pandemic. (We're doing one this summer with a slightly different but no less auspicious group — I should have some work to share later this summer.)

Dan

Jul 28, 2022 at 11:54 AM

JWRisinger
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

For my money the best of this recent set. Certainly echo the appeal of the natural aesthetic.

Jul 29, 2022 at 12:43 PM

John Webb
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

Sweet! Great comp and processing.

Jul 31, 2022 at 03:11 PM

ksmmike
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

excellent work

Mike

Aug 01, 2022 at 08:12 PM

RoamingScott
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

A really well balanced shot with a bunch to explore within the frame. Cool stuff!

Aug 01, 2022 at 10:34 PM

gdanmitchell
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

JWRisinger wrote:
For my money the best of this recent set. Certainly echo the appeal of the natural aesthetic.

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John Webb wrote:
Sweet! Great comp and processing.

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ksmmike wrote:
excellent work

Mike

Thanks everyone!

Aug 02, 2022 at 09:57 AM

G_Davis
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

Beautiful scene - great composition and I love the soft light of blue hour. I haven't been around here in a while, but it made me go back and look at the others you've posted recently - great set all-around. Unfortunately they remind me that I've been telling myself for a couple years now that one of these days I need to get back up on top of those 2 peaks in the background. I guess I can't blame you (or the photos) for that, though.

Aug 02, 2022 at 01:07 PM

Bill Gass
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

Beautiful picture and lighting is great as well, and yes, I love the UFO Clouds...Really neat to see.
Looks like snow on the right as well ?
I could sit on the banks for hours drinking coffee and watching the clouds and wildlife.

Aug 02, 2022 at 05:01 PM

gdanmitchell
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

- - -

quote]Bill Gass wrote:
Beautiful picture and lighting is great as well, and yes, I love the UFO Clouds...Really neat to see.
Looks like snow on the right as well ?
I could sit on the banks for hours drinking coffee and watching the clouds and wildlife.

Thanks.

G_Davis, I have been to the top of the far one toward the left, though it has been a while. (I've been to the top of the closer one at the far left many times.) I've never been to the summit of the other one, and it is must less visited from what I hear. The tough folks do a double traverse of both, but that drop in between must be a bit demoralizing.

I've been all over up there though over the years, some on trails and some cross country.

Bill, yes, there is some snow on that ridge to the left. And, also yes, I could sit on the banks of this river and ponder, too. In fact, I have, quite a few times over the decades!

Dan

Aug 02, 2022 at 06:33 PM

ratherfish
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · "Sierra Crest, Blue Hour"

Great image all around Dan! I love the pastels, the composition and those clouds. It's very calming to look at. For quite awhile. Congrats on the win! Well deserved.

Aug 06, 2022 at 09:54 AM

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