Category Archives: Photographs: Fall Color

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: New England

Conifers and Hardwoods, Autumn

Image October 28, 2022 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A mixed stand of conifers and colorful autumn hardwood trees, New England.

Near the spot where I made this photograph, a carpet of wildly colorful hardwood trees was draped across valleys and ridges. It was quite a sight, but it was also very difficult to photograph it. One of the challenges of photographing in this part of New England comes from the very forest that produces those colors. The darned trees grow so close together and come right up to the edge of roadways, making it very difficult if not impossible to make photographs of longer views from many locations. That was definitely the situation here — lots of colorful trees, but lots of things standing between me and those trees.

It eventually occurred to me to use the blockages as part of the photograph. in this case there were conifer trees growing nearby and among the hardwoods, and once I thought about how I liked the effect of the muted green conifers against the riotous hardwood colors it seemed to make sense to juxtapose the two types of trees in this photograph. If nothing else, this photograph serves as a record of those qualities.

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.

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

Aspens, High Desert Valley

Image October 27, 2022 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Autumn aspen trees line a creek through a high desert canyon, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Heading across the Sierra early in the third week of October, I wasn’t certain what kind of aspen color I would encounter. There’s always some color at this point in the season, but in many years it has been diminished by wind and passing early weather fronts. But it seemed that these influences were muted this year, and as I approached Sonora Pass I was encouraged by seeing much more color than I expected. I turned south after crossing the pass I headed south where the forests of the Eastern Sierra begins to meet the high desert sage country. As I passed this small valley — where I had not really paid attention to the color potential in the past — I caught a flash of bright color below. I quickly turned around and backtracked to locate a better camera position.

Getting just the right conditions for these trees that grow along shallow canyons like this one is tricky, especially on the eastern slopes of the Sierra. Typical daytime light is often quite harsh, though that diminishes a bit with autumn’s lowering sun angles. But this time I got lucky, and broken clouds created patterns of light and shadow on the sage-covered hills. I set up and waited for the light to show up in the right places, and eventually it lit up the trees in the Vally and produced alternating light and dark patterns in the hills and mountains beyond.

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Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: New England

Birch Trunks, Fall Foliage

Image October 26, 2022 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

White birch tree trunks emerge from a sea of fall color, New England.

For this California photographer, the autumn. Eastern Sierra aspens are some of the most interesting trees. Their leaves can certainly be colorful — often yellow/gold, but also ranging through orange and red. But their white or near-white trunks set them apart. They are fascinating no matter what the leaves are doing — spring. green, autumn color, or winter bare. I take it that there are aspens in New England, though their presence is overwhelmed by the other trees that we don’t see in California. As I photographed in the Northeast it seemed to me that that birch trees are more or less the aspen surrogates there, and they often provide similarly interesting trunk structures.

It is easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer mass of Northeastern fall color, to the point that it sometimes is difficult to make a photograph of the subject. I know that may sound strange — those colors are exciting, so why not just point the camera at them and make pictures? That’s exactly the problem. It is easy for the colors to be the whole show, so I look for other things that can tie them together in some sort of form. Tree trunks can often do this. A few trunks slicing, twisting, or slanting through a scene can give it direction and flow that is hard to achieve in a photograph of just the colorful leaves.

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

Aspen Grove, Red and Gold

Image October 25, 2022 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Red and gold autumn color in an Eastern Sierra Nevada aspen grove.

A small change in a subject can alter how we see it and even make photographs possible in a location that might have not worked in the past. I have driven past this grove scores of times, occasionally stopping to. look at some colorful nearby trees. But I never took the time to walk just a little bit further to this camera position. Why not? Often there are too many people here, and when I usually visit the color is not at its prime. But this time I came about a week later and on a quiet weekday. The color was much more interesting, and the entire time I was there I saw only one other person.

The beginning of the Sierra aspen color season is a special time, and the beginning of the transition never fails to catch my attention. My favorite time frame is usually the first two weeks of October, perhaps because the start of the change is so compelling. But things are different — and equally interesting — a bit later, following that early color peak. I made this photograph in the third week of the month, when trees at the higher elevations had already lost most of their leaves. Even here a lot of foliage had fallen. However, this meant that virtually all of the remaining leaves were shades of yellow, orange, and red… and the thinner foliage revealed the white aspen trunks.

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G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Fall Color

Conifers and Hardwoods, Autumn

Aspens, High Desert Valley

Birch Trunks, Fall Foliage

Aspen Grove, Red and Gold

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.