Tip of Dreaded Hill

Posted on November 29, 2013 in Biomes Hikes and Trails Photos

I wonder if Ansel Adams and Edward Weston produced photos that they loved but others just did not get? When I look over the photos that other people have taken of Whiting Ranch Wilderness, they all seem pretty much the same. They hike the same trails, see the wildlife in pretty much the same way. Deer have to look like the stag on the old Hartford Insurance Company seal. Landscapes must have blue skies. The brown and the yellow by themselves must be avoided.

This photo ignores those conventions and I am happy that it does. While I label it with the name of the promontory in the background, it is really about the rough, yellow ridge. And as someone who has hiked Whiting quite a bit, that tells a new story about the park, about wild California.

Perhaps people skip it because it reminds them of that long terrible season when the foothills lose their green. Perhaps they’d prefer that I wait to capture the easier scenes of the late winter and the spring. I love this photo because it reminds me of the heat and the dryness, the long intervals when the climate desiccates the land nearly to a desert.