Aspen & Red Fir Leaves on Illuminated Snow

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Toyabe National Forest, Alpine County
mid afternoon October 22, 1994, slide 94A_25-9
Olympus OM-4T, 50mm Zuiko macro, Benbo Trekker
Drum scanned 35mm Kodachrome 64 to 100mb RGB file
Adobe Photoshop 6.0 processed for accurate image fidelity
Lightjet5000 printed on Fuji Crystal Archive paper
signature top mid right

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A friend and I were on a weekend photography road trip east of Ebbetts Pass on SR4 at about 7,800 feet where a group of tall quaking aspen, populus tremuloides, lines the road. Each fall the grove tends to be one of the last aspen groves to put on fall color changes.

The previous night we drove up through a minor late October storm that had put a couple inches of snow on the un-plowed roadway. Even with chains, his 2-wheel drive Buick had trouble in spots in the conditions. After reaching the 8,732 foot pass we drove east down to a deserted campground at about 6,000 feet on the Carson River where the temperature was a bit above freezing and thin snow was only spotty on the ground. Ebbetts Pass closes permanently each winter season after any storm puts snow on the road surface too deep to drive through then stays closed to next spring. There was a possibility that we could have gotten stranded thus had to get down to a lower elevation.

In the morning we tossed our wet tents into the Buick and drove north down SR4 and SR89 to Hope Valley where we found some modest work. The gusty storm kept up intermittently though with minor precipitation through midday. In the afternoon we drove back SR4 to the grove at 7,800 feet where we had noted good aspen colors during the previous night's drive. At that higher elevation the temperature was a bit below freezing and snow was accumulating on the ground though not on the road surface. In the grove snow depth was mostly two or three inches. Very easy to walk through, though generally covering most surfaces. Fir trees had a thin coat of snow and were decorated like Christmas tree ornaments with bright yellow aspen leaves.

Because the storm was windy, quite a lot of the color-changed leaves had fallen onto the snow surface. The clouds for a storm were also relatively thin and variable with frequent small holes of blue so the illumination was surprisingly good. It continued to flurry lightly without so much coming down as to disrupt our camera work. Fresh snow has strong reflectance so the light reaching the ground through the trees was also illuminating back up into the surroundings.

The most interesting phenomenon was diffuse light through the clouds reaching the snow surface caused the just fallen aspen leaves atop the snow to appear to glow from below. Sort of like aspen atop dim fluorescent bulbs. It was wonderfully electric! We marveled at the scene, wandering about a couple hours looking for aesthetic combinations of leaves and other objects. The light flurries were continuing to coat leaves on the snow surface with a fine crystal layer that is visible in this frame on the leaf at the middle of the bottom edge. The grove has several trees with orange and red leaves besides the more common yellow, which provide some variation in this image. And a few off the fallen leaves still have some green. Leaves falling off, break at the end of leaf stalks so each leaf has a candy cane colored stalk attached. At the top left corner are a couple leaves that had already turned color then changed to a dull brown. Leaves that drop within a day begin to get brown spots until it covers the whole leaf. A few such leaves can be seen under some of the fir needles.

I noticed this a short young red firabies magnifica, with branches touching the snow surface with a nice set of leaves about it. So set up my tripod waiting for good illumination through the trees and clouds.

Crop at 100% print size:

   David Senesac
   email: sales@davidsenesac.com

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