Having fun in the snow - a family vacation in Mammoth Lakes, CA

This year, like many years, we spent the week in between Christmas and New Years in Mammoth Lakes, CA. For those who have never been there, it is a beautiful place located relatively close to Yosemite National Park, known for their ski resort and winter activities. Most of the time was spent with the family, and not behind the camera. But, since I find so much enjoyment taking photos, I made some time with the camera and the family.



This is a panorama image of Convict Lake was taken using 10 RAW images from the Canon 5D Mark III, making it a whopping half gigabyte single PSD file.

On the first day there, we decided to go snowshoeing.

We all had a good time, but I think Cooper had the most fun. This was the first time that our 1 year old puppy had experienced snow.

Woo hoo - this is fun!

The funny thing is...we always think of Cooper as a very white dog, but when you get him into the pure white snow, it is amazing how much darker he is against the background.

Our daughter, Ali, looking stylish.

Our son, Connor, hanging with Cooper.



Since my son, Connor, has a lot of experience with DSLR cameras, I had him take a rare shot of me and the puppy.

This shot of Cooper was just too darned cute not to include in the blog.

I shot this image of this pretty tree while hiking through the snow with Connor.

I took this shot of Ali with my iPhone 4S at the top of the slope. I am still amazed at the quality of the panoramic photos from this phone.

I shot this photo on the road up to Convict Lake (named for some convicts that escaped from a prison in Carson City in 1871 and then were killed at the lake). I really liked the gentle slope of snow. After looking at the original photo, I decided that this one would look even better in black and white.

After shooting some images from the nearby road, I decided to work my way through the snow to see if I could get a better vantage point. When I came across this frozen log, I was blown away. What a perfect foreground subject for my lake shot!

Any time I come across something like this, I like to take my time to "work the scene". I shot many images of this ice covered log, using a combination of lenses. These were all taken with the Canon 16-35mm 2.8 lens (ranging from f10 to f16 to get everything in focus).

After shooting at Convict Lake for 45 minutes, we headed back to the valley and shot some images. I set the aperture to f16 to give me a nice sun flare and captured this photo. Then it was back to the house for some much needed lunch!