Best Images 0f 2021
My best Eastern Sierra images of 2021
It is that time of year where folks publish their best images of the previous year. Here is my list.
Locations include:
Owens River
June Lake Loop
Bishop Canyon
Bridgeport
Sage Hen
Silver Lake
Gull Lake
Mammoth Lakes
Round Valley
While 2021 had its issues it was a great year for photographing the Eastern Sierra.
Would love to know what you think of the images and which one you liked the best.
Wishing you an awesome 2022!
Five Reasons to Buy a Wall Calendar
With all the technology we have at our fingertips why would anyone want to buy a wall calendar these days. Think about it. We have calendars on our phones, calendars on the computer, calendars in our Email application, calendars on our watches, and even the date on our car stereo.
The wall calendar should be as dead as a doornail. Yet the more accurate phrase is “the wall calendar is dead, long live the wall calendar!” What magic gives this lowest timekeeping device alive and well?
With all the technology we have at our fingertips why would anyone want to buy a wall calendar these days. Think about it. We have calendars on our phones, calendars on the computer, calendars in our Email application, calendars on our watches, and even the date on our car stereo.
The wall calendar should be as dead as a doornail. Yet the more accurate phrase is “the wall calendar is dead, long live the wall calendar!” What magic gives this lowest timekeeping device alive and well?
Here are my top five reasons the low tech “wall calendar” thrives in this technology-driven society:
In our high-tech screen-driven world, images and information are fleeting. This creates a human desire for something physical and more permanent. We have two calendars in the house. One in the kitchen and one in the main bathroom. I usually make two calendars, one of the Eastern Sierra and one of Dodger Stadium. We catch ourselves regularly stopping and looking at the images. It takes us back to places and experiences we love.
It is like having Christmas twelve times a year. The calendar in the kitchen is too high for my wife to reach. On the first of each month, one of the first things she asks me to do is to flip the page on the calendar. She looks forward to seeing what the next image is going to be. It’s like opening a present! Some of the images have a special meaning because, as my “Photographer’s Assistant” she told me to take them!
Wall calendars bring people together. You can write something on a calendar for a specific date. From that point on everyone can see it without having to ask Alexa. We have a group of longtime friends with who we get together several times a year. With kids, sports, and work it is hard to schedule things. We have a planning party every year to map out the things we want to do together for the next year. You should see the calendars come out at that event. If you have a friend that really likes a particular topic a quality wall calendar on that topic is a great way to provide an inexpensive gift that still has a very personal touch.
I think having a wall calendar hanging up is also a character statement. Let me give you an example. In the Book Blue Highway, the author takes a trip around the US trying to drive only on “Blue” highways, meaning back roads. In the book he stated he could predict the type of meal he was about to have by the number of calendars the restaurant had on its walls:
“No calendar: Same as an interstate pit stop
One calendar: Preprocessed food assembled in New Jersey
Two calendars: Only if fish trophies are present
Three calendars: Can’t miss on the farm-boy breakfast
Four calendars: Try the ho-made pie too
Five calendars: Keep it under your hat, or they will franchise”
Now think about it. The last road trip you made. If the joint had a calendar or two, usually of a local youth sports team or a local business, the food was pretty good and the service was friendly. Now think about the last time you saw a calendar at a McDonalds. Enough said.
Well, maybe one last point for my Highway 395 friends. Our first impression of the Aberdeen Resort was a Margie standing in front of a wall calendar hanging next to a rotary phone. The food was off the chart.
Aberdeen Resort
5. The benefits of buying from a local or small-time artist that focuses on a place or thing you love.
In my case the Eastern Sierra. You are supporting a local artist. That artist will put some of that
money back into the local economy of the place you love. If that was not enough, the calendar will
bring you back to your happy place all year long.
We have several calendars up on the walls of our house. The connection between calendars on the wall and good food that the Blue Highway author makes is true. The BBQ at the Kent house is pretty tasty.
Reverse Seared Rib Eye
After reading this you have the desire to buy a wall calendar of the Eastern Sierra check out mine at the link below.
Begin 2026 with the Eastern Sierra Calendar from Bob Kent Photography—beautiful photos showing the area’s wild beauty and changing seasons. Each month displays colorful skies, tall mountains, and classic landscapes, bringing the Eastern Sierra’s charm to your home. A year-round tribute to nature’s beauty.
This year has something new. QR code that leads you to the story behind the picture!
My 12 Best Images of 2018
The 12 Best of 2018
Why 12? To be different. Everyone else has a Top 10. Besides I like the idea of one for each month. Even though I did not take as many images last year, it was an awesome year for my photography. Mainly for two reasons.
During most of my trips up to the Eastern Sierra there were luscious clouds in the sky. Nothing improves a landscape photo like clouds.
I started concentrating on the improving the composition of my images. Specifically working on improving the foreground area. To me, it made a huge difference.
So here we go.
The 12 Best of 2018
Why 12? To be different. Everyone else has a Top 10. Besides I like the idea of one for each month. Even though I did not take as many images last year, it was an awesome year for my photography. Mainly for two reasons.
During most of my trips up to the Eastern Sierra there were luscious clouds in the sky. Nothing improves a landscape photo like clouds.
I started concentrating on the improving the composition of my images. Specifically working on improving the foreground area. To me, it made a huge difference.
So here we go.
# 12 Independence God Rays
The most unexpected spots sometimes consistently provide the most awesome images. In this case there is a pocket park located on the south side of Independence. It is a nice spot to stretch the legs and take a health break. On multiple times I have captured incredible images like this with awesome light and clouds. Right from within 15 feet of the street next to the park. Notice how the foreground creates an alter for the God rays.
# 11 Hot Creek Sunset
The area behind the Hot Creek gorge is one of my favorite places to watch a sunrise or sunset. The area around a certain white bridge is well magical during a sunrise or sunset. Add awesome clouds high enough to catch the suns last rays and change colors, well see for yourself. Think a couple of chairs, a bottle of wine, and some good company.
# 10 Clouds Over the Owens Valley
Remember the first reason I said my 2018 images were awesome? Yes clouds. I have always loved the cumulus clouds that have a flat bottom. Bit of trivia as here is the explanation of why they have flat bottoms. The flat bottoms of cumulus clouds define the exact height at which a critical combination of temperature and air pressure causes water vapor within the rising current to condense into a visible cloud.
# 9 Minaret Sunset
Sometime bad things produce beautiful scenes. Forest fires are natural but with the drought and other factors the fires of late have been terrible. Their smoke at sunset though creates some of the most beautiful sunsets you will see. This is the case with this sunset over the Minarets and the smoke from the Lions fire. The Minaret vista has a wonderful view but trying to capture it as a still image is difficult. In some places there are tall trees that obstruct the main image. In others there is nothing and the impact of the image gets lost in a mass of complexity. Even though I only had a few minutes to capture the scene I walked around and found the foreground to anchor the image. I think it paid off. Do you?
# 8 June Lake with Moon
June Lake is gorgeous. For years I have tried to get an image of June Lake that captured the feelings I get when I view the lake. I have always come up empty and this year I focused on getting an image that I liked. I got several, but I think this one shows the lake off at its best. Morning alpenglow, still water, clouds, and the moon.
# 7 Heart Lake Viewpoint
The Heart Lake trail out of Coldwater campground, was a hike I did not take for years because I thought it was too short and did not have any special scenery. Was I ever wrong as it had some spectacular view, wildflower, and if you walked past the lake just a bit this scene?! This scene has three of Mammoth’s most widely recognizable locations in one view: Mammoth Mountain, Lake Mary, and Mammoth Crest. Another example of using the foreground to make the image more interesting.
# 6 Heart Lake
Heart Lake is a small lake with only a hint of any interesting geology formations visible Just a simple little alpine lake. Sometimes simpler is better.
# 5 Grant Lake with White Line
Three things led to this capture.
One, the willingness just to wander. We had done the June Lake Loop earlier from the other direction but coming home with the clouds and sunset we decided to do it again.
Two, preparedness - five minutes before the clouds were ten times more colorful, five minutes after the light was gone. Like Goldilocks’ porridge this was just right. I usually travel with the camera ready to go and already on the tripod. Being ready allowed me to capture the image.
Three, listen to your photographer’s assistant. My wife has developed a keen eye for scenes worth stopping for. I was in a keep driving mode and she told me to stop and take the image. She was right, this image got more comments on Facebook than almost all my other posts.
# 4 Parker Lake with Logs
I do most of my shooting very early in the morning or around sunset. The hike to Parke Lake is one of my favorite hikes; one I have done many times. When I went with some others on a mid-morning hike, I did not plan on doing much shooting. I was stunned when we reached the lake, the water was still fairly calm and the light was not too harsh. I took my time to find the foreground to anchor the image and came away with one of my favorite images of my favorite lake. Shows that you should never assume and approach the creation of your art with an open mind.
# 3 Sage Hen Road with Trees
We were taking some friends on a day tour of the cool things around Mammoth in the fall. Even though this location had passed its fall color peak, I thought the views were worth going there. Well sometimes it all just works; the light coming through the leaves, the blue sky with clouds, and a nice leading line.
# 2 Whitney Fish Hatchery
The Whitney Fish Hatchery is a wonderful oasis in the Owens Valley. The building is picture card perfect but one I had never captured to my liking. This day all the elements of a great image were working overtime; the clouds, the light, just everything. While my photographer’s assistant was setting up our picnic, I walked around to see if I could find a new perspective. Did I hit the jackpot! This was the FB post and calendar page that got the most comments. I think you can see why.
# 1 Cloudy Silver Lake
I knew as soon as I took this picture it would be the best image I captured on this trip and probably of the whole year. It is a rare gift to get still water and storm clouds. It is even a rare gift to get them late in the day. This image is taken from one of our favorite places to sit and have a picnic. We just sit and soak up the beauty around us. Occasionally, we will have deer and ducks join us to make it even more special. it was tough to choose between Whitney Fish Hatchery and this image as the best. Our personal connection to this spot was the tie breaker.
The above is my ranking, which of these images was your favorite? The bar is set high for 2019 but it will be fun to beat this list. Just pray for a cloudy 2018!
Eastern Sierra Early Morning Scramble (ESMS)
A great Eastern Sierra Morning Scramble (ESMS) is a plate of “Golden Hour” Light, beautiful puffy, clouds, and a side of water (a still lake or a running stream will do.) When you get up to enjoy ESMS that is cooked right it truly is a moving experience!
The problem is you need to get up pretty early to get served because once nature runs out it is gone for the day!
A great "Eastern Sierra Morning Scramble" (ESMS) is a plate of “Golden Hour” light, beautiful puffy white clouds, and a side of water (a still lake or a running stream will do.)
When you get up to enjoy an ESMS that is cooked just right, it truly is a moving experience! Sorry for the food reference but we have eaten twice at the Aberdeen Resort in the last couple of weeks and good food is on my mind!
Majestic Scene
The problem is that to truly enjoy an ESMS you need to get up pretty early to get served. Once nature runs out it is gone till dinner! I usually get up early for work so you would think it should be easy for me to get up early for an enjoyable ESMS. Unfortunately, I tend to enjoy sleeping in on days I don’t work.
So when that alarm goes off at 4AMish there is an epic battle between good and evil. Evil is to fall into the sins of the body and continue to enjoy that comfy warm bed. Good is forget the temptations of the flesh and get up and go to enrich your spirituality.
My past routine was to silence the alarm and lay there for a bit re-thinking of where to go. What I was really debating was if I should get out of bed. If "Good" is winning I get up and take a peak outside the bedroom window. If the wind is blowing or it looks like a cloudless sky it is like "Evil" gave "Good" a knock out punch and I jump back into bed to the temptress' warm sheets.
That routine has cost me to miss out on some epic ESMSs. So I have begun to try the stoic method to give "Good" the advantage over "Evil." Here is my simple two step stoic method:
Jump out of bed. Don’t let the temptress of warm sheets sing her siren of evil to get me to stay.
Use Shawn Achor’s (author of “The Happiness Advantage”) 20 second rule. His research has found that you greatly increase your chances to continue a positive habit by making it three to 20 seconds easier to start a good habit. So now I get everything ready the night before so it is just a grab and go. Saving way more than 20 seconds!
The new method seems to give “Good” a big competitive advantage over “Evil.” Not perfect but a way better winning percentage.
This particular morning “Good” won. I got up and went. As I was driving the clouds that had a chance to turn colors seemed to be best in the east so Hot Creek won out over Convict Lake. As the sky was lightening up I was bummed. Several of the spots I normally shoot were already occupied by folks illegally camping. It was still pretty early so I did not want to wake them up tromping around with my camera and tripod.
Turned out being considerate was the right choice. Shooting at the Hot Creek’s little white bridge turned into a “target” rich environment.
The location was the perfect recipe for an ESMS. Beautiful warm light, high clouds that the sun was painting with wonderful colors, and a wonderful running stream!
So sit back while I replay the wondrous ESMS morning:
Pre-Sunrise with the clouds hinting of what's to come!
I had time to take pictures at as the sunrise unfolded and in different spots.
Hot Creek Alpemglow
A nice person made a comment on my Facebook post of the image below that summed the scene in one word perfectly "majestic!”
Hot Creek's Little White Bridge
So I figured I had captured the bridge as best as I could so I would try some other spots and compositions. I don't think you could have taken a bad picture this particular morning.
Sunlight playing with the top of the sage!
The moment when you realized it was a good decision to get up that morning
I then packed up my camera and tripod and decided to wander the fire roads while I let the ESMS digest. Doing so I found nice spot on the north side of Hot Creek.
I also found a more direct route to the Chalk Bluffs.
A ton of chalk!
Finally, the "Golden Hour" magic light was pretty much gone and I thought I would finish the shoot with a nice shot of the Eastern Sierra under some nice puffy white clouds.
Just another boring view in the middle of knowwhere
But the days ESMS was not done. Driving back to our condo Mammoth Mountain, under those puffy white clouds, was just too majestic to pass up.
Hope you enjoyed the story. Hope to see some of you out there enjoying your ESMS sometime. Love to hear your thoughts.
Clouds are the Photographers Spice of Life
Clouds are a landscape photographer's spice to add flavor to their images. Don't believe me, do a google on "Ansel Adam on cloud" and see how many hits come up of his images that have "cloud" in the name.
My point is this, There are a lot of good images that have a bright blue cloudless sky. There are many more "great" images of the same location that have clouds in the sky! I love the Owens Valley, it is gorgeous. That said, would the above image be so moving if it did not have those wonderful clouds in the sky? I think not.
Hwy 395 in the Owens Valley
Clouds are a landscape photographer's spice to add flavor to their images. Don't believe me, do a google on "Ansel Adam on cloud" and see how many hits come up of his images that have "cloud" in the name.
My point is this, There are a lot of good images that have a bright blue cloudless sky. There are many more "great" images of the same location that have clouds in the sky! I love the Owens Valley, it is gorgeous. That said, would the above image be so moving if it did not have those wonderful clouds in the sky? I think not.
At times I travel a lot. When I do I spend a lot of hours in airplanes. It was during those hours that I really fell in love with clouds and how God paints the sky with them. I am amazed how many folks who have window seats who never even look out at the incredible scenes that are going by their windows.
Now, I always try for a window seat. It soothes my soul watching those wonderful clouds float by. It makes the hours of the flight, fly by (pun intended.) I take my camera almost every trip and have come away with some incredible images. See a few below. Most think I am crazy because I root for the plane to get closer to those thunderheads, damn the turbulence, I want to get my picture!
Prehistoric World from 30,000 feet
The Octopus
Wingtip Almost Touches the Clouds
Can You See it? Near the top of the cloud, just to the right of center there looks like a scratch in the image. It is actually another airliner. So just imagine the immense scale of that cloud!
So forgive the long download time. I am going to let my cloud images do the talking for me. After an hour + of trying to whittle the number of images down I still have too many images in this post . If you like the images with clouds you may want to check out my friend Matt Granz work http://avax.news/charming/Storm_Clouds_by_Photographer_Matt_Granz.html. He has gone head over heels for Storm chasing and a lot fo his images are breathtaking!
So sit back and enjoy the clouds!
Reflections
Tenaya Lake, Yosemite - Stormy Above, Calm Below
Venice Beach California - Looking into a Mirror
Horse Shoe Lake Mammoth Lakes, Ca - Big Sky
Stormy
Shrouded Half Dome Yosemite, Ca
Stormy North Lake - Bishop Ca
Crowley Lake, Mammoth Lakes, Ca - Sunset was competing with the 4th of July Fireworks
Clearing Storm over the Minaretes, Mammoth Lakes, Ca
Tuscany, Italy - Clouds Add Spice Everywhere in the World
El Matador State Beach, Ca - God Painting His Canvas with Color
Sunrise over Mono Lake, Ca - Trail to Parker Lake
Sunset Mammoth Lakes, Ca - This is under 10 feet of snow right now!
Have I convinced you? Don't landscape images look better with a touch of photogrpaher's spice?