Category Archives: Photographs: Fall Color

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature

Dense Autumn Aspens

Image Leave a comment
Dense Autumn Aspens
A grove of dense and colorful autumn aspen trees, to the east of the Sierra Nevada.

Dense Autumn Aspens. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

A grove of dense and colorful autumn aspen trees, to the east of the Sierra Nevada.

This dense grove of autumn aspen trees, perhaps just past the peak of their seasonal color, provided an opportunity that isn’t easy to find in these groves — a slightly elevated position looking down into and across an aspen forest that stretched away up a nearby hillside. I was actually here to photograph something else, a distant landscape. But once I finished that task I moved on and spent some time with these trees.

Unlike many of the trees in my aspen photographs, these are not technically in the Sierra Nevada. Instead they are in a smaller range located east of the Sierra. The range may be smaller, but it is still high, with peaks over 11,000′. Being in the rain shadow of the Sierra, these mountains are rather dry, but there’s enough moisture to sustain very large stands of aspen trees.

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.

Blog | About | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Autumn Light and Color

Image Leave a comment
Autumn Light and Color
Light through seasonal haze illuminates autumn trees in Yosemite Valley.

Autumn Light and Color. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Light through seasonal haze illuminates autumn trees in Yosemite Valley.

I have a few seasonal rituals, things I do and places I go every year. Visiting Yosemite Valley during its fall color season is high on the list. The Valley has color, but it comes later than the Eastern Sierra aspen transition. So I made one of my epic one-day up-and-back visits earlier this week. The plan: up hours before dawn, a four-hour drive to arrive just after sunrise, a few hours of morning photography, midday naps, more late-day photography… and then the four-hour drive back home again..

It is exhausting, but it is also exhilarating to see the peak color there once again, to renew my acquaintance with familiar subjects, and to investigate a few new ones. I know this specific location quite well — and if you visit the Valley much you probably know it, too. A gap in the Valley’s cliffs to the south-southwest allows beams of light to reach the valley floor and progress across the meadow and trees. I made a plan to be there for this light, and I made this photograph just as the light passed across this group of black oaks.

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.

Blog | About | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature

Autumn Color, East of the Sierra

Image Leave a comment
Autumn Color, East of the Sierra
Fall color spreads across hillsides in mountains east of the Sierra Nevada.

Autumn Color, East of the Sierra. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Fall color spreads across hillsides in mountains east of the Sierra Nevada.

After photographing autumn color in the Eastern Sierra for a few decades, I still return every year and remain fascinated by the subject. After all of this time I “discover” new subjects and new ways to see old ones every time. But eventually I figured out there’s more to fall color than just the familiar locations, and I branched out in various ways. Now I occasionally head east from the Sierra, toward basin and range country. I’m not certain whether this location qualifies geologically as basin and range, but it most assuredly is not the Sierra.

Over the past few years I’ve explored this area, going beyond even the parts of it that are somewhat known to photographers — heading out on some narrow little dirt tracks just to see where they go. This fall I ended up on a narrow road that descended toward a canyon, and across the valley was one of the more extensive blankets of autumn color that I’ve seen in California. The trees are not large, but they stretch on for great distances.

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.

Blog | About | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Aspen Quintet

Image Leave a comment
Aspen Quintet
Five aspen trees inside a dense grove with autumn leaves.

Aspen Quintet. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Five aspen trees inside a dense grove with autumn leaves.

I love wandering in dense aspen groves, especially the sort with small, twisty trees. They look like they should be easy to photograph — after all, they are filled with white trunks, the light filters through the colorful canopy, and underfoot there are leaves and all sorts of other goodies. But once I enter the grove, it inevitably turns out to be harder than expected to find the elusive ideal subjects and compositions. A bit of bright sky overwhelms the trees, a distracting branch or boulder enters the frame, the colors are lovely but can’t be corralled into a composition, the undergrowth is too thick to traverse.

But I eventually I do find something that works and avoids (at least mostly) the pitfalls described above. I think that this little group of five white-trunk aspens is one that works. The trunks stand clear enough of the background details that their shapes are clearly visible. The background has no spots of intense daylight, and the colors range from green through golden-yellow to a bit of orange.

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.

Blog | About | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.