Nature is stochastic, every changing… Plan in advance, and more often than not, nothing is as you planned… Astronomical events may occur like clockwork, but nature often intervenes, throwing a thick blanket of clouds over the proceedings. From time to time, though, everything falls into place, and though the scene before me was visible for only a handful of minutes before twilight washed away the stars and the Milky Way, to see our island of stars slowly appear as the Moon’s brilliance faded was an incomparable experience. Photographed May 26, 2021, at Boot Arch, Alabama Hills, Eastern Sierra, California.
For most of the short and often busy hike to Parker Lake, first crossing open slopes, then ducking into a forest of evergreens, the signs of autumn are as far away as birdsong on a cold winter day. After a mile, the sparseness of the forest begins to be punctuated by the white barks of aspen groves, yellows, bright greens, and the occasional splash of orange and red shining among the dull pine needles. All that is colorful is painted with the palette of the aspen, juxtaposed against the ageless rock above and still water below. Photographed October 2019.
