Meadow, Evening Light And Shadows. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. October 9, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening light and shadows on meadows and trees along the base of the eastern Sierra Nevada

I visited this eastern Sierra location several times this October, and over those several visits I had the opportunity to watch the evolution of the fall color there. The first time I visited, very close to the start of the month, there was only a bit of color, and many of the aspen trees were still green. I returned less than a week later, and by that time most of the trees had changed color and a few had already lost their leaves.

Having watched this location for many years, several things have happened relative to how I photograph it. First, I rarely photograph it now the way I did at first. The overall landscape here is impressive, with meadows and groves of aspens leading upwards toward high peaks along the Sierra crest. But having photographed that expanse quite a few times, I now tend to look for smaller portions of this scene that I might not have previously noticed. Second, each year I get a better sense of how the color transition progresses as I return to this place and become more familiar with the patterns… and with the things that can vary from year to year. However, while some things have changed, others haven’t. For example, I still almost always photograph here late in the day, when the low angle sunlight barely clears the Sierra crest and passes over the landscape to backlight the trees and create long shadows.

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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