Branches and Clouds, Merced River. Yosemite National Park, California. November 4, 2007. © Copyright 2007 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Branches and clouds reflected in the surface of the Merced River

This photograph was taken along the shore of the Merced River near the “housekeeping” camp along the south side of the Valley. I had wandered over here to photograph a tree on the opposite bank that had dropped an interesting bunch of colorful leaves. (That photograph turned out to be, I’ll be honest, boring… ;-) As I got ready to take down the tripod and leave I noticed this interesting bunch of partially submerged branches along the waterline.

I recently (May 2015) reworked this photograph, and I like the newer interpretation quite a bit more than the original. Here there are “three worlds” in the photograph — the solid material of the branches and their crisp reflections in the water, the barely visible branches beneath the water’s surface, and the very light reflections of sky and thing clouds.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.