Category Archives: Morning Musings

Seeing Small (Morning Musing 9/22/14)

Redwood Branches, Morning
Redwood Branches, Morning

I frequently go out and photograph for a morning or a day, or even as briefly as an hour or two. My instincts — for place and for seeing — are such that I can usually get myself into a productive state of mind quickly enough to make worthwhile photographs even with so little time. But I’m fortunate to be able to head out for much longer periods of photography several times each year, ranging from a few days to as much as several weeks — and this experience is very different from that of the shorter sessions and, I think, produces a different kind of photographic work.

As I continue to work my way through hundreds of frames that I brought back recently from ten early September days in the Yosemite backcountry, I begin to wrap my brain around the entirety of the collection of images and I start to see some patterns. One of these is a process that is a combination of “focusing in” and “settling in,” something that takes place in several ways over the course of a long trip like this one.

The transition is obvious when viewed in retrospect — the feelings of excitement and looking forward to the adventure at the beginning are very different from the feelings as the trip comes to an end, which are a combination of an in-the-moment focus and a certain amount of retrospection. At the beginning, no matter how many times I have been out on the trail (a total that can be measured in years at this point), there is always a feeling of excitement and unknown potentials on that first day. I tend to be attracted to the bigger and more obvious elements in the landscape, and a first look around a new location on a day near the beginning of a trip often sees me photographing many of the big, impressive, and obvious subjects.

Then the inevitable transition begins. There might first be a feeling of “I think I’ve photographed everything here,” followed by the now-familiar understanding that I haven’t, and a decision to wander about and see what I’ve missed. This (purposeful) wandering always leads me to see things that I missed at first, often smaller things that I hadn’t seen because I was not yet looking closely enough or sufficiently tuned in to the nuances of the place. And before long I’m finding compositions in a bit of meadow grass, pine cones littering the forest floor in morning light, the textures and forms of granite, and light shining through trees.

Morning Musings are somewhat irregular posts in which I write about whatever is on my mind at the moment.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Quotations and Photographs (Morning Musings 9/21/14)

Self-portrait with Friedlander Poster - SFMoMA
Self-portrait with Friedlander Poster – SFMoMA

With partially ironic intent, I’m going to begin this Morning Musings post with two quotations. I snagged from the web by doing a quick search on “quotations about quotations” and, in line with common web practice, I simply present them for what they appear to be — I have not checked to validate the sources. Hey, it’s the internet! ;-)

“In the garden of literature, the highest and the most charismatic flowers are always the quotations.”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“He wrapped himself in quotations – as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.”
― Rudyard KiplingMany Inventions

I’ve thought about this quite a bit, largely in the context of the (increasingly?) common practice of attaching quotations to photographs. I think that there are things about this practice that seem useful and beneficial, but there are also some aspects that seem a bit problematic, at least to me, and I’d like to briefly explore this in an entirely incomplete way.

I can call up a few relevant quotations pretty quickly when necessary. Some of you may have seen me post a favorite John Muir quote as a way of acknowledging that I’m heading of into the mountains: The mountains are calling and I must go.  Continue reading Quotations and Photographs (Morning Musings 9/21/14)

Aspen Color Update (Morning Musings 9/20/14)

Aspen Tree, Morning Light - An aspen tree with morning backlight, photographed high above Bishop Creek Canyon
An aspen tree with morning backlight, photographed high above Bishop Creek Canyon *

Today’s Morning Musings post is a brief summary of some things I’m hearing about the development of the eastern Sierra fall aspen color. With the exception of some things I saw a week and a half ago in the Yosemite backcountry, what follows is entirely second-hand information, gleaned from descriptions and photographs I’ve seen posted here and there on the web. (That means that you will likely want to do whatever other checks you normally rely on if you want more detailed and specific information.)

I usually target the first week of October for my first serious aspen photography in the eastern Sierra, but in recent posts I have mentioned the widespread feeling that the color just might come early this year. I also wrote about seeing some strong signs of autumn color in northern Yosemite during  the first two weeks of September, earlier than I would usually expect to see such things.

After reading some years of the annual excitement of “the aspens are changing early this year!” following the discovery of an odd tree here or there with some yellow leaves, I’m usually pretty cautious about reports of early color. However, I’m starting to hear and see a significant number of reports and photographs suggesting that things really are getting underway early this time. Continue reading Aspen Color Update (Morning Musings 9/20/14)

The Young and the Old in the Backcountry (Morning Musing 9/19/14)

Backpackers, Near MIlestone Basin
Backpackers, Near Milestone Basin*

I’m no longer the young person I was when I began backpacking at the age of just about 16, nor even the person who was young and footloose and fancy free in the Sierra during college and in his twenties. During the past few years, I and others have noticed a decreasing number of young backpackers compared to what we saw back in our youth. In a recent discussion, the subject of “young people in the backcountry” came up — in the context of noticing that their numbers seem to be increasing again.

During the first part of September I was in the Sierra with a group of photographers “of a certain age,” among whom I may have been the youngest, when we were passed by a delightful young couple on the trail… and they brought back wonderful memories of my own travels when I was more like them in appearance and pace, and when everything in the mountains was new and fresh and unknown. That was a wonderful and magical time! Continue reading The Young and the Old in the Backcountry (Morning Musing 9/19/14)