I spent a few days in the Eastern Sierras immediately after the area got -- in some areas -- two to three feet of snow. While driving around looking for some trees with lots of snow on them, I saw a pull-in area off of Route 395 that was being used by some snow mobile drivers. No one was around and I flew the drone once. Then one of them came back for some RnR, and I asked him if he was heading out again. He was and he agreed to give me a minute to get the drone in position over the tracks (I had seen these in my first flight). I took this picture as he drove into the frame.
I was quite lucky because I caught him just before the tracks forked which I think adds a lot of interest to the image. (Possible image title, from the Robert Frost poem "Two Roads Diverge in a ....Wood"?)
In post I brightened the image a little, added some green saturation for the trees, and put selections around the tracks with added contrast and structure so they stood out more.
2 comments posted
Drema Swader
I like drone pictures taken from above in the snow, and I like the lines in the snow made from the tracks in this image. The snowmobile, however, is too small to be a significant part of the picture, and I probably wouldn't have noticed it had you not mentioned it, especially with the other small trees being spots in the image. I wonder how this image would have looked if you had positioned the drone just above the trees so the snowmobile was larger in the picture. Posted: 03/09/2025 16:41:37
Lou McLove
Hi Pete, I think that Drema makes some great comments - no surprise there. I might not have noticed the snow mobile except for the title but then I guess sometimes that is the title's purpose. I think the problem with getting lower is that you would lose the panoramic effect and much of the interesting part of the image. Overall I really like the image, I think it is composed well and I like the straight down view point. Posted: 03/13/2025 21:52:48
