Bare Aspen Trunks and Boulders. Sierra Nevada, California. October 3, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Granite boulders stand behind a row of nearly bare fall aspen trees near South Lake, Sierra Nevada, California.
This is one more photograph from my early October aspen-chasing expeditions to the eastern Sierra. On this trip I ended up in the Bishop Creek area and on this cold, slightly snowy, early fall day I ended up at one point along a section of roadway just below Parcher’s Resort near South Lake. Below Parcher’s there is a meadow – I parked there and spend some time wandering up the roadway past this area of steep, jumbled rocks and aspen trees and other foliage.
A note about the light in this photograph: I had passed by this area before – on previous visits and earlier during this trip – and thought about how I’d like to photograph here in diffused, shaded conditions. So I made a plan to return much later in the afternoon when I knew that the sun would move around behind the ridge about this spot and leave it in shade, but with some light coming in from the open sky and ridge on the other side of the valley – pretty much exactly the sort of conditions I look for when I photograph this type of subject.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
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keywords: row, aspen, bare, tree, trunk, season, fall, autumn, white, branch, leaf, leaves, vertical, yellow, gold, rock, boulder, cliff, lichen, texture, parchers, resort, south, lake, bishop, creek, road, sierra, nevada, mountain, range, california, usa, landscape, nature, scenic, travel, stock
Someone thinks this would look awfully nice on one of her bedroom walls.
Hi Dan – It has echos of Burkett and Cramer in there (which no had thing at all). The color of the leaves has all the more impact for the scarcity of them and the blue of the rock in the background. I also really like the little waterfall of leaves up the top right and the hints of green lichen (?) around the bottom of the picture.. very much a success
Tim:
Thanks so much for your comment – and commentary – and especially for the flattering suggestion of a connection to Charlie Cramer’s work. Charlie’s work is among the best I know. I often think “what would Charlie do?” when I shoot certain subjects such as this one and, especially, when I print them.
You also caught one specific thing I was thinking about when I made this photograph, namely the effect of there being so few leaves left on these trees.
Take care,
Dan
BTW: I see some beautiful photograph at your web site…