Category Archives: News

A few notes on Sierra Nevada fall color progress

It will be a few more days before I manage to get myself to the Sierra to do the my first fall color photography of the season. I’ll be in the Cathedral Lakes area for a short time (not specifically to photograph aspens though) and then make a quick visit to the “east side” to reconnoiter – and then I’ll be back there a few more times in early October. With this in mind, you can imagine that I’m keeping my eyes open for early information about the color change – and I’m starting to see more posts and even some photographs.

  • The Eastern Sierra Fall Color pool on Flickr now holds many fall color photographs. Up until now the large majority came from previous seasons, but I’m now starting to see some that appear to have been shot in the past couple of days. (Though I have to note that the dates shown on Flickr are not necessarily correct – it would be nice if photographers posting there this season would include a word or two about date and location…)
  • Late last week Greg Boyer posted an on-the-spot Fall Color Update #6. He visited Bishop Creek and notes some prospects for the near future, some conditions that bear watching elsewhere (including brown trees in the large grove across from and above North Lake), and some current color. (You can follow his blog directly.)
  • Cory Freeman has posted a very brief update at his Sierra Impressions blog. He also visited the Bishop Creek drainage late last week, and reading between the lines of his brief report his summary might include: some small trees starting to change color, some color above North Lake, things seem more or less on track. (Apologies to Cory if I got any of this wrong.)
  • Though it is not actually a “fall color report,” an important post at Yosemite Blog reports that there will be some brief road closures this week at Wawona Tunnel that might affect some heading across the Sierra late in the week.
  • Carol Leigh’s Calphoto site is a good source of updated information since quite a few eastern Sierra aspen hunters share updates with her site. (There isn’t a lot there just yet, but it is likely that more frequent reports may begin after this weekend.)
  • Steve Bourelle’s Sierra Visions site includes some fall color updates and his post from September 15 is very much worth reading. Thanks, Steve, for the reminder about the…
  • Parcher’s Resort Fall Color Report – which still seems to indicate that, yes indeed, fall colors are ahead of us. The Parcher’s site reports are actually quite detailed and include photographs that will help those already familiar with the areas judge the progress of the colors.
  • Philip Colla has posted an extensive list of resources for those following the eastern Sierra fall color.

That’s all for now. Let me know if you have other sources that I might want to add to this list, and please share your own reports with me. (Yes, you can be part of the aspen hunters network!)

Michael Frye on fall photography in Yosemite and the Sierra

Michael Frye has just posted a very useful guide to fall photography in Yosemite and the Sierra at his blog. Frye has a great deal of experience here, especially with The Valley itself – you may know him as the author of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite.

I was interested to read that he really loves November photography in The Valley – as it is also at the top of my list of great times for photography there. Right at the beginning of the month I love to shoot the fall colors – wonderful big leaf maples, red leaves of dogwood trees, and the brown to golden colors of the oaks and the dry meadows. I find the weather during this month to be some of the most conducive to photography… basically you can run into almost anything: the first real snows of the season, arriving and clearing storms ringing the Valley walls with clouds, beautiful golden light of autumn, waterfalls that may come back to life after autumn rain, and much more.

Photographs in the queue

I know that some may wonder what sort of life I live that lets me (forces me to?) go online every morning, 365 days per year, and post a new daily photograph at 4:00 a.m. Pacific.

While I do post new photographs here at a rate of one per day – which does mean that I create new photographs at a fairly steady rate throughout the year – I don’t really get up at 4:00 a.m. every day to post the next one. Fortunately my web site has a queue feature – but you knew that already, right? (Sorry if I am disappointing anyone. :-)

Sometimes when things get busy I may actually find myself shooting and and then post-processing in the evening a photo that will appear on the site the next day. Yes, there have been a few occasions when I did not actually know what photograph would be posted 24 hours later! But more often I have at perhaps a week’s worth of photographs already in the queue and scheduled for automatic publication.

I’m thinking of this right now because it is a very good feeling to know that there are enough photographs in the queue right now to carry me all the way through the month of September! That’s right, while I’m out shooting the autumn aspens of eastern California nearly a month from now the photos that I posted today will be appearing here. (Between how and then you’ll see more work from the Sierra, additional photographs from San Francisco, and a series of night photography images shot at the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard at the end of August.)


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.

G Dan Mitchell: Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


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Night photography news – time to catch up!

It has been far too long since I’ve posted on the subject of night photography, one of the subjects that interests me a great deal. There is so much other stuff for me to photograph during the summer months – urban and natural landscape, “my” Sierra Nevada, the coast, and so on – that I tend to slack off on the night photography this time of year. However, as summer draws to an end, night photography is one subject that seems to increasingly begin to interest me again.

So, with that in mind, a few notes related to the subject.

Late last week fellow SF Bay Area photographer Ivan Makarov contacted me to say that he was organizing a group of photographers to do a night photography shoot at the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard. He knew that I have shot there in the past (lots of examples in my night photography gallery) and asked for some advice about access and locations. I shared with him a bit of what I know about the location and also connected him with Tim Baskerville of The Nocturnes, the SF Bay Area night photography group since Tim is our local guru of all things related to night photography. After consulting with Tim and getting permission from the folks at Mare Island, Ivan got back to me and I decided to join his group. I won’t spoil the fun by saying too much here, but I’m currently working on photographs from the outing and they will show up here in a few weeks. (Impatient readers can get an early look by checking out my Flickr stream.)

So, since the pump was primed with that bit of night photography last weekend, I’ll catch up with the night photography news.

One great source for night photography information – and especially for coverage of shows featuring night photographers – is Andy Frazer’s Night Photography Blog. Recent news at his blog includes the following:

  • An opening this week of a night photography show in Alameda featuring the work of several well-know local night photographers: Troy Paiva, Mike Hows and Joe Reifer. Follow the first link in this bullet to find more info about the location, times/dates, and the opening reception.
  • Also during the month of August Any kept up a steady stream of posts highlighting a number of compelling examples of night photography – visit the blog and take a look.

Over at The Nocturnes Night Photography Blog you’ll find some seemingly random quotations… mixed in with some very interesting posts on local night photography events and shows.

I’m hearing rumors of an upcoming Mare Island Reunion for previous participants in The Nocturnes workshops. If you are a  past Nocturnes participant and you haven’t heard from Tim… you might want to check this out.

Finally, if you are looking for some information on how to do night photography, let me point out two resources:

  • The Nocturnes web site is the portal to a ton of information on the subject, ranging from technique to photographer to workshop opportunities. I strongly recommend that you visit!
  • For a very quick list of some basic considerations for night photography, take a look at my own Hints for Night Photography post.