Autumn Snow, Last Light On Granite. Yosemite National Park, California. October 22, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Last evening light on glaciated granite dusted by autumn snow.
The path to this photograph was a long and convoluted one, and it was certainly not what I was planning on when my day began. I had arrived in the Yosemite area the prior morning, planning to photograph autumn subjects in The Valley before heading over to Oakhurst for the opening reception for the final run of last year’s Yosemite Renaissance Exhibit. I arrived in Yosemite Valley to find it filled with smoke (and a surprising number of October visitors), but I found subjects that could work in this conditions and set about photographing. This is the time for fall color in The Valley, with lots of beautiful leaves on big leaf maple, dogwood, oak and other trees. In the evening I went over to Oakhurst in time to enjoy the reception, where I had an opportunity to see the 2017 version of the show one last time with friends and fellow artists.
I was up well before dawn the next morning with a general plan of heading to Glacier Point for sunrise. However, a beautiful, forested valley full of dogwood and other fall color intervened, and by the time I finished there it was clear that I wasn’t going to make my goal by dawn or even close to it. I did go on up to near Glacier Point, where I photographed wildfire smoke before deciding to go back to The Valley and photograph more trees. I did so, and I had some successes, but by mid-afternoon the crowds and smoke were becoming oppressive, to I decided to make what might be my final trip of the season up to Tioga Pass. Without stopping to photograph, I made it to the pass in the late afternoon. I soon started back down to begin my long drive back to the Bay Area. As I passed the closed-for-the-winter Tuolumne store I saw a familiar van and some tripods standing nearby, so I quickly stopped to see that a couple of friends were there. We talked for a long time — longer than I expected — but I finally tore myself away with little more than a half hour of daylight left. I started west, not sure if I would stop to photograph, but I soon saw that it was going to be a beautiful evening. The smoke was gone up here, the air was clear, and the warm colors of evening were on the peaks. I quickly stopped at a familiar place, but pointed my lens at a less-familiar subject — a series of retreating granite ridges marked by new snow and lit by the final light of the evening.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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