All posts by G Dan Mitchell

G Dan Mitchell, photographer and visual opportunist focusing on the Pacific coast, the Sierra Nevada, redwood forests, California oak/grasslands, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography and more. Posting daily photographs since 2005, along with articles, reviews, news, and ideas.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Conifers And Scrub Aspens

Image December 30, 2019 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Conifers among small autumn aspen trees, eastern Sierra Nevada.

This should be my final Sierra Nevada photograph that I’ll share in 2019… but expect more in the coming year! I’m using the term “scrub aspen” to refer to these small trees, even though it isn’t widely used. When we think of autumn aspen trees the taller and often straighter trees come to mind. But in the Sierra these trees come in an amazing range of shapes and sizes. Although they are rare, you can find the same tall and straight trees that you might associate with groves in places like Colorado, but trees that are more twisted are more common here. Many are not that large, and in some rocky areas they may be no taller than you are.

These smaller “scrub aspens” growing on rocky slopes frequently seem to be among the first to change colors in the fall. In fact, these were already fully covered in colorful leaves even though it was just a few days into October. (I generally regard the peak of Sierra aspen color as coming around the second week of the month.) I photographed this scene late in the day, when the sun had dropped behind the peaks of the Sierra crest, leaving this valley in shadow.

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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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature

Autumn Pond, Tree

Image December 29, 2019 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn colors on a small tree in a wetlands pond.

Central Valley landscapes such as this one often cause me to stop and consider what this area was once like. Today it is mostly agricultural land, marked of into neat squares with water coming from extensive irrigation systems, cut through by roads and highways connecting the increasingly populous cities of the area. But not much more than 100 years ago it was a very different place. One reminder for me is a description that John Muir wrote in the 1800s, remarking on vast fields of wildflowers that he saw as he walked (!) to the Yosemite Sierra. Historically, many parts of the Valley were also quite wet places, with marshy lowlands fed by many rivers and creeks draining from the mountains. (Much of this water is now captured, channelled, and devoted to agriculture.)

Fortunately, some remnants of the old marshlands (and even the original grassland prairie) have been protected. Many of the marshlands were protected, as I understand it, as part of the wildlife refuge program. One of the reasons for this is that hunters did not want to see all of the waterfowl disappear. Recently I read that there is yet another practical benefit to these places — birds that stay in them are less likely to feed on winter crops! In any case, these places now help protect remaining migratory bird populations… and they provide beautiful reflections for landscape photographers!

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Photographs: Nature

Cascade, Detail

Image December 28, 2019 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An alpine Sierra Nevada stream rushes over rocks and boulders.

These little cascades are among the most characteristic features of the Sierra Nevada high country — that region close to and above the treelike dominated by open views, rocky terrain, and (during the summer) the water from melting snow. Such streams range from barely-flowing rivulets to features large enough to qualify as creeks — but they are all rather small at these elevations, and they often take circuitous routes across the alpine landscape. Their scale invites close inspection, perhaps hoping across on rocks, stopping to admire plants and flowers on their fringes, and pausing to take in their sound.

This stream could be almost anywhere in the Sierra high country, but in this case it was perhaps less than five minutes walk from where we base-camped for a week of photography near the end of August and the beginning of September. We established a camp with water on all sides — a lake wrapping around us to the south and west, and flowing water in the remaining directions. As I write this in December, I’m thinking about how much different this landscape looks right now!

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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Nature

Three Trees, Fog

Image December 27, 2019 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Three trees on a foggy Central Valley late-autumn morning.

This group of trees, and especially the central one, have gradually become “old friends” of mine when I photograph in California’s Great Central Valley each winter. (If you photograph frequently in a favorite location, I’ll bet that you have some similar personal favorites!) Every time I pass by here, coming around a particular curve in the road, I spot the first tree and begin considering how it relates visually to the elements behind it, primarily including the other two “mirror image” trees.

The conditions in the photograph are fairly typical of late-autumn up and down this great valley, which stretches hundreds of miles from the southern end (where roads lead over mountains to the LA Basin) to the north (where Mount Shasta looms). When the conditions are right (or “wrong” if you live out there and it is the thirtieth day of them!) the damp air is very still and tule fog forms. This fog is dense but not deep — you might not be able to see more than a hundred feet in front of you but you can look up and see the sun or stars. The fog completely transforms this landscape, eliminating the sense of grand space and scale and instead producing a sense of intimacy and mystery.

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