Trees and Falling Snow. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Snow flurries fall through trees at the edge of a Yosemite Valley meadow

It seems almost unbelievable that I made this photograph barely more than two months ago, on a very cold mid-April day in Yosemite Valley. Yesterday temperatures were over 100 degrees here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and there wasn’t a cloud to be seen. Yet that is how California seasons evolve — a somewhat unusually cold and snowy April day is followed weeks later by an unusually hot and dry mid-June day. (And one week after I made this photograph I was again in Yosemite Valley… and it felt completely like spring.)

I made the photograph late on the first day of one of this year’s visits to The Valley as part of my Yosemite Renaissance artist-in-residency. This work eventually let to “Transitions: Winter to Spring,” an exhibit now open at Gallery 5 in Oakhurst through July 15 (extended!). Indeed, I experienced that transition in the Valley, making a number of multi-day visit during the period from mid-February through the end of April, and I lived that seasonal transition. I experienced everything from extremely cold days of snow to the warmth and sun of early spring. This particular snowy day was the last one I experienced in the Valley this year. There wasn’t that much snow, but it was cold enough to stick and renew the winter like appearance of the place.

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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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