Ancient bristlecone pine under the Milky Way. These incredible trees make their home in the White Mountain Range. The range parallels the Sierra Nevada to the east of Owens Valley.
Though the two ranges are relatively close as the crow flies, they are very different. The Whites, spares in vegetation and dry, even though they do received copious amounts of snowfall, the Sierra, lush meadows, rampant with wild flowers, alpine lakes and streams.
The White Mountain Range is also a great place for night photography, due to the lack of light pollution, some of the darkest sky in the US.
We scoped out this tree, framed our shot and set our focus, then returned well after midnight to capture the image. It took several practice sessions to paint the tree and foreground with my flashlight within the :30 second shutter speed. There were quite a few throwaway shots where the tips of the branches were too dark, but I finally got all areas with just the right amount of light to capture the entire tree.