Trees and Granite Slabs, Sunset. Yosemite National Park, California. July 27, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Sunset light on granite slabs and lodgepole forest, Yosemite National Park, California.
I made this photograph almost a year ago, during a Sierra Nevada summer that was much wetter and greener than the current season. I had driven to the Yosemite high country and found a campsite, then set about looking for photographic subjects. Often on my first day in the high country, I do only a little photography. Instead I spend the first part of the day driving, the middle part finding and setting up a camp, then eating, and only after that wandering off to look for things to photograph in the evening. On these first days, the evening photography is somewhat spontaneous, depending upon the light conditions and where I ended up camping.
On this day I first took a late afternoon hike into an area that is visited a bit less frequently, going there to photograph some granite and water. However, I neglected to bring mosquito repellant, so this hike turned into a mad scramble to make it back to the car before the bugs managed to suck out all of my blood! After that I simply visited a series of familiar locations along Tioga Pass Road, more or less heading back in the direction of Tuolumne Meadows and stopping here and there to make photographs as the subjects and the light caught my attention. At the time of the very last light I found myself near this very accessible and very familiar granite formation, so I quickly grabbed my gear and walked up slabs to make this photograph as the last momentary bit of direct sunlight struck this dense grove of pines.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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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