Eastern Sierra Stream, Autumn. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Autumn colors line the banks of a small Eastern Sierra Nevada stream
Perhaps because I wrote a book on the subject of photographing fall color in the Sierra Nevada, people often want to know what spots to go to in order to see and make photographs in the autumn. I will name a few places, mostly those that are quite popular already, easy to find (as in right next to the road!), and not subject to much danger from overuse. However, the truth is that there are great photographic opportunities in the fall all over the Eastern Sierra and elsewhere. For every iconic spot there are hundreds or thousands of others that also have great potential for photographs. You just have to slow down and look a little bit.
This photograph is of one of those little places — you could easily pass right by it and miss it. I have, and I’ve even stopped nearly and not seen a photograph. This time I was heading up a canyon in cloudy conditions and light rain, and perhaps the unusual conditions helped me to see differently. In any case, as I drove past the area I noticed the red plants growing close to the ground, even though there were largely obscured by intervening trees. I quickly turned around and came back, parked, and then spent some time poking around and looking. I finally ended up down along the bank of the stream, the closest I could get to the red plants, and I found a composition looking upstream toward more colorful plants and the white trunks of an aspen grove.
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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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