During the first half of September I spent a few days camping and photographing in the Tuolumne Meadows area. On two of those day I wandered into Tuolumne Meadows before sunrise. There was fog one day — not the one in this photograph — and haze from wildfire smoke on both. Here the trees, being close to the camera, have some intense color from the sunrise light, while the haze mutes the distant landscape and shifts its colors.
Some amount of wildfire smoke seems to come with the terrify in September and October in the Sierra, at least until a first good storm arrives. At its worst, the smoke can be thick enough to be unhealthy and to make photography a challenge. But much of the time it can lend an interesting muted color to everything, as it does here.
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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email
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