Forest Floor, Late Summer. Yosemite National Park, California. September 6, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Late-summer forest floor littered with fallen cones, branches, needles, and leaves.
As summer comes to an end in the high country of the Sierra Nevada, as it was during my early September visit this year, the moisture, growth, and greenery of the early season begins to give way to the drier and more brown conditions signaling the coming of fall. The short period of rapid summer growth ends, and the mountains seems quieter.
We spent several days camping and photographing at a small lake, taking the time to explore and even to return to places to photograph them more than once. By staying in one place for a time, it becomes possible to see things that are easily overlooked during a shorter stay. Initially the dramatic granite features around the lake drew our attention, but after a few days we became more interested in subtler things, including a low, grassy area near the outlet stream of the lake that some of us might have first dismissed. On this morning I was simply wandering slowly though this area, now looking more closely and at smaller things, when I saw the still-shadowed ground densely covered by a carpet of pine cones.
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.