Aspens, Eastern Sierra, Earth Shadow. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A grove of aspens with early season color, the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada, and the predawn earth shadow in the sky.
Long before I understood what I was seeing I had noticed and was intrigued by that band of darker sky just above the horizon during the morning and evening twilight, very close to the time that direct sunlight appears on the highest points. There is something very mysterious about it, and it suggests to me great distances beyond those encompassed by the immediate scene. Eventually I learned what now seems obvious — this is the edge of the shadow of the earth, dropping away in the moments before dawn and rising in the moments following sunset. (To this day, every time I think of this, I recall photographer Gary Crabbe’s “interpretive dance” as he explained this at a talk I attended years ago — one hand extended out and upwards pointing to the shadow, and the other extended at a slight downward angle pointing to the unseen sun. Thanks, Gary!)
I made this photograph from a high point east of the Sierra crest one September. I headed out this way in pre-dawn darkness not sure what I would find. I was pleasantly surprised to find extensive aspen color, even though it was just past mid-September, and then to find an open overlook from which I could take in a large section of the Sierra as dawn arrived.
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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The colors are amazing and such a lovely contrast of the sky and land!