I recently ran across this photo by a local guy, John Paul Edwards, who was a buddy of Ansel Adams and was in the original f/64 Group. Judging from the pictorialist style of the photo, I would guess this would have to be pre-1930 or so. What little I can find out about this guy probably dates this to the 20s. The only other images from the Sierra that I encountered are in Yosemite but this view is unfamiliar to me. Anyone have any ideas?

A wild guess would be Lyell in the background.

hmmm...

Maybe Mount Dana from north of Tioga Pass and east of Mt. Conness (somewheres in the Hoover Wilderness)?

http://www.summitpost.org/mount-dana-se ... -near/7149
http://tedmuller.us/Outdoor/Hiking/2006 ... ntDana.jpg

By Jove, I believe he got it!
Mt Dana looks like the winner.

Yea that is a better guess

The foreground still puzzles me. Shot must be from the north but with this angle and apparent distance, it seems to put us above treeline.

bearflag wrote:The foreground still puzzles me. Shot must be from the north but with this angle and apparent distance, it seems to put us above treeline.

I agree, Mike. Yes, the peak in the distance does look like Dana, but I have, as yet, been able to figure out where this was taken. The closest I've come is from the SE slope of Shepherd's Crest just west of the Sierra Crest, but certain elements don't quite add up. There appears to be another high peak in the distance to the left. Maybe Mt Gibbs? But if that were Gibbs, then that would mean this photo would have been taken from the vicinity of Mt. Warren which looks nothing like the foreground of this shot.

The weird thing is that I feel like I've been there before, so it's really been driving me crazy.

Thanks for giving us yet another interesting picture to ponder over.

Based on a photo I took from the Saddlebag Crest and looking at the 15 minute topo the best I can come up with at the moment is that it was taken somewhere in the vicinity of Shell Lake or possibly further north by Fantail Lake looking towards Dana about a half mile or more northwest of Bennettville in the valley between the Sierra Crest and The Tioga Crest. I think the high point left of Dana is the 11,540' high point at the northwest end of the Dana Plateau.That rugged cirque like wall is puzzling though. I may be too insignificant to show up on the topo.

I hadn't used Google Earth for a long time but used it to see if it could provide any enlightenment here. Certainly easier to use than a few years ago and much better resolution. Even though the far peak looks a lot like Dana, a cruise all around the area doesn't seem to find anything like the view in the photo. I figured that a location so close to the road was a pretty good bet and had a hard time convincing myself that it wasn't Dana but now I'm pretty sure that it's a good look-alike.

Here are the only two other Edwards images in the Sierra that I have run down:


and



As an aside,if you're at all interested in the history of photography in the Sierra, you gotta check out the guys doing this work:


Find them here:
http://byronwolfe.typepad.com/klettwolfe/yosemite/

The wall at the back of the foreground cirque looks like the lower part of the north ridge of Conness (with the slope of North Pk on the right), but that would mean the photo is looking NNW, not at Dana. There is similar rock along the crest north of Gaylor all the way to Shepherd Crest, and other cirques (like the one above Granite Lakes), so probably lots of other possibilities. I have a picture of Dana from the summit of Shepherd Crest; from that high Saddlebag Lake and the Lee Vining Creek drainage are obvious. Though I don't know whether the Saddlebag dam was there in the 20s I think the lake was, though smaller. Absence of the creek drainage/lake in the mystery photo makes it unlikely it was taken from Shepherd Crest toward Dana (though the background peak does look like Dana from the NNW).

I hope somebody figures this out, because it perplexes me.

There's little doubt the peak is Dana. Here's a shot from North Peak. The photo in question was taken somewhere down lower in that general vicinity below like Conness Lakes or closer The key is pin pointing that glaciated wall which is very similar to the one in the North peak shot of the east ridge of Conness.

Fooling around with Google Earth, I thought it matched pretty well the view from the southern slope of Shepherds Crest, looking towards Mt Dana. The photographer is standing sort of north of Upper McCabe Lake, which is out of view to the lower right. The wall in the foreground is the ridge connecting Shepherds Crest to North Peak. The shoulder of North Peak is the right skyline. I think the bumps in the center skyline are between the viewer and Dana and not obviously named highpoints.

You should take this with a big grain of salt since I haven't been farther than Saddlebag Lake in that area, so this is GE-based. Here is a screenshot. The red triangle on the horizon is Dana and the green mountain symbol in foreground is Shepherds Crest.

My Earth ramblings led me to the same place. What bothers me is that we seem here to be way above treeline and there are clearly trees even above the photographer's location. Looks like Upper McCabe is about 10,500, the ridgetop at 11k+. My guess for an elevation of the photo is more like 8-10k'. Anyone good at ID'ing the tree species and its range?

Ok. Here's a pic looking down from the south ridge of the Shep. Crest looking at that ridge you guys think is in the mystery pic.And another one taken lower.

Did you already see this description?

John Paul Edwards Mountain Landscape Photograph

Platinum photograph of a mountainous landscape, signed in pencil lower right, 10.5 x 13.25 in. (sight), matted, framed, and glazed, 20 x 24 in. John Paul Edwards (1884-1968) was a member of group f/64, Camera Pictorialists of Los Angeles, The Oakland Camera Club, and the Pittsburgh Salon. Institutions that hold his works include Oakland Museum, Amon Carter Museum, the Getty, Hallmark, San Francisco & New York Museums of Modern Art, the George Eastman House, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the California Museum of Photography, and others.

Source: http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/10289116 (scroll down a bit)