Autumn Shoreline. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Early autumn colors, granite slabs, and low water levels at a Yosemite backcountry lake.
Recently I have been going through a large body of work created on backcountry photography trips with a group of fellow photographers. The photographs begin in 2008, when I first encountered them near a favorite Yosemite high country location. It continues over the next few years when I packed myself fin and briefly joined them each season, and then over a longer period when I fully integrated with the group and began spending a week or so photographing with them (almost) every summer. It has been a wonderful experience with a great group of photographers and friends, and I’m hopeful that the story will be shared more widely in the future.
This photograph comes from 2009, the second summer that I joined them, albeit briefly. They base-camped for more than a week in this area when I backpacked in to join them for a few days. (My early departure may have been a blessing in disguise, since shortly after I left the temperatures dropped close to zero!) A benefit of settling into one location for a few days is that I have the time to slowly wander the area, a photographic opportunity that is not available on typical backpacking trips where the need to make mileage leaves far less time for photography.
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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
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I love this image! It almost looks HDR (in a good way), is it the high dynamic range of your camera. I have been to the Sierras in years, I retire at the end of the year, I have Sierra dreams for 2022.
Hi Kurt,
I have Sierra dreams, too — like that I’ll be able to get back up there without the pandemic worries again sometime this summer. I actually have a pack trip planned with a group of friends in late July.
The lighting in that photograph was tricky, though in a not-unexpected way. It was pretty early in the morning, and this part of the lake was still in deep shadow and very blue. So it required some color adjustment to get it to look more as we expect it too look — the camera sees blue light as quite literally blue! There were a lot of things that appealed to me about this scene, ranging from big things (the large mirrored patterns) to smaller things (the water level rings on the rocks).
Dan