High Sierra: The Range of Light

Fred's eye for composition is strong . He goes to great lengths to get to the most interesting capture of all his subjects. This is a 30 year project encapsulated in a terrific book.

This fine-crafted volume is infused with a gallery of color images that unveil the beauty of an iconic American landscape rarely seen in other illustrated books on the Sierra Nevada. The photographer traveled far and wide throughout the “Range of Light,” sometimes in the footsteps of conservationist John Muir and legendary High Sierra mountaineer Norman Clyde. Their quotes along with those by Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, and the late great Himalayan climber, Anatoli Boukreev, underscore many of the images that show the High Sierra’s range of moods and palette of colors from dawn to dusk.

Pros:This is a beautifully bound book - a quality publication.The scenes depicted are magnificent as the photographer has gone to amazing efforts to get to some amazing places. There is and has been no other book on this subject like this one.Cons:If you are like me and wish to see these amazing scenes printed clearly with good colour and brightness (or density), then there will be disappointment.The majority of the photos are too light and washed out looking. Either this is how the photographer wanted to present the pictures or they have been printed too light - only the author could answer this question.Some of the colours do not look that natural, maybe due to the pictures being too bright?I could be wrong here but the lighting in most of the pictures is very even - there is not a lot of difference between light and dark areas in terms of brightness which may be contributing to the "washed out" look. It kind of looks like the Photoshop "Shadow / Highlight" tool has been overused, or something along those lines.It is a shame as I had high expectations of this book before it arrived being a keen landscape photographer myself. As I said, the scenes are lovely but the reproductions in this book let them down.

This as a great compilation of images taken by a photographer who clearly knows his subject well, and has spent years compiling an inspiring set of photographs. If you love the high mountains and photography , you will love this book. As a photographer and lover of mountains myself, I appreciate how much time, effort, and endurance it took to obtain many of these images. He has a great eye for composition, and the passages in the book are well written.

This is a beautiful photography book. There is some text. I really liked the quotes and the short descriptions of the photographs. The photographer often explains why, where and how he took the photograph. Whether you plan on hiking/visiting the parks or just want to arm chair travel you will enjoy these photographs. Gorgeous and Inspirational