Autumn Color and Sierra Crest. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Early autumn color in a landscape of rock and forest below the east side of the Sierra Nevada crest.
Thoughts of autumn have begun over the past few weeks. I can imagine all sorts of reasons. As I have written, that mysterious “something” that indicates that the seasons are changing appeared recently, right on schedule. (I attribute it to changes in light, the angle of the sun, the time of sunset and sunrise, and perhaps a few other things.) Here in the West, it may also be triggered by an intense desire to see the end of the hot, dry conditions that plague us during this time of global climate change. I miss cooler weather!
This, of course, gives rise not only to ideas about where to go to photograph this year’s color, but also to reexamination of autumn photography from prior years. This photograph comes from a few years back, during the relatively wet interval between the previous five-year drought and the current drought. I made my first fall color visit in very early October that year, hitting a few of my favorite places and checking out a few new ones that are less known. This location is more the former than the latter, a very large system of canyons draining the eastern Sierra above Bishop, full of rivers, forests, and plenty of rocky terrain leading to the crest of the range.
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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