I don't know if others do this, but do you ever find yourself trying to identify mtns in movies, tv shows, or ads that you see? I noticed this scene and took a screenshot from a new Jack in the Box ad on tv currently. It's the eastern side of the Sierra, but I can't figure out where. The road almost looks like a mirror image of switchbacks of Whitney Portal Rd... but like I said, it's almost like a mirror image because the switchbacks should be on the other side of the notch going up to Whitney Portal.

Any ideas which road is in the picture?

Yeah, I've been seeing this commercial, too. It is a reversed shot of the Lone Pine Creek area. The ridges and canyons above 'Jack' are actually part of Lone Pine Peak. The road to the left switchbacking up into the canyon is Whitney Portal Road- in reverse.

Good call!

I'm still not for sure it's a reverse image of Whitney Portal Rd in the background. It's quite similar. And it puzzles me if it is a reverse image, then why would the producers of this advertisement do that? Seems like it would work just as well without reversing it. I dunno.

Here's an image of Whitney Portal Rd I reversed for comparison. Some of it seems to match, especially the parts around the switchbacking road... but it's not the right angle so I'm still not sure. I don't know the roads further north off 395 as well so I wonder if it's up towards Bishop or something. I know this isn't Onion Valley Rd or the roads to the south such as Horseshoe Meadows or even 9-mile road further south.

boyblue wrote:Yeah, I've been seeing this commercial, too. It is a reversed shot of the Lone Pine Creek area. The ridges and canyons above 'Jack' are actually part of Lone Pine Peak. The road to the left switchbacking up into the canyon is Whitney Portal Road- in reverse.

Good call!

Good eye Gordon! I have no doubt this is the Whitney/Lone Pine Peak area and that's the Portal Road.
I doubt the pic was reversed intentionally to confuse people. I think whoever posted this photo was confused himself/herself.
Whitney seems be shrouded in clouds, or may be a bit of photoshop work to make it a bit harder to identify the area, in which case the photo may have been reversed intentionally.

The screenshot is from a tv ad. It's not a still shot. It's a video. You can see it at 0:11 here:
https://youtu.be/z4gLCWzMn5o?t=9

That's what puzzles me. If this is a shot of Lone Pine Creek area and the switchbacks of Whitney Portal Road, why would they reverse image a *video*?

It may have to do with framing of the shot, since eye's tend to move from left to right when absorbing a scene.
But, if they DID reverse it, then they also knew that ahead of time--and so they had Jack wear his hat on the opposite side, so that the hat in the reversed video matches the other non-reversed shots. Unless all of the outdoor scenes were mirrored...

395guy wrote:The screenshot is from a tv ad. It's not a still shot. It's a video. You can see it at 0:11 here:
https://youtu.be/z4gLCWzMn5o?t=9

That's what puzzles me. If this is a shot of Lone Pine Creek area and the switchbacks of Whitney Portal Road, why would they reverse image a *video*?

Having made dozens of home videos I know that you can make stills from any frame of a video you want. I have also mixed stills and videos to make a point.
To make sure that this is the the Portal Road and the Whitney area I made a careful comparison of all the rock formations, ridges and background mountains in this shot and my own photographs of the area. I still think the shot in the video is a still and out of ignorance they made it in reverse direction.

Perhaps the producer was clever enough to predict that some climbing nerds would pick up on the anomaly and debate the matter in a public forum, thus giving more attention to their commercial.

pjc30943 wrote:It may have to do with framing of the shot, since eye's tend to move from left to right when absorbing a scene.

Jack is riding from left to right in all the clips. This suggests he’s going somewhere with a purpose. Having him zigzag right to left in one clip would seem a little strange and suggest no purpose or destination.

pjc30943 wrote: Unless all of the outdoor scenes were mirrored...

Or shot against a green screen. I've seen many instances in video and print where an image is reversed, even images of famous people with unique facial features like Zach Brown. I have no idea why they do that.