Category Archives: Photographs: Fall Color

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

Aspen Branch and Leaves

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Aspen Branch and Leaves
An aspen branch bearing leaves at the peak of autumn color, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Aspen Branch and Leaves. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An aspen branch bearing leaves at the peak of autumn color, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

This is another photograph made during a brief “up close and personal” ramble through an aspen grove that was absolutely full of the widest range of aspen color I have seen — the full gamut of green, yellow, gold, orange, red, and even a few tan or brown leaves.

I enjoy taking a break from typical landscape photography, which tends to focus on the large view and on producing an image of the scene that evokes its reality to some extent, and working these tiny “intimate landscapes” with their immense range of variables. The scene may contain as little as a single leaf and rarely includes more than four or five, and the juxtaposition of the leaves within the group and against the background provides lots of room for experimentation. Here I used a macro lens with a large aperture so that I could could separate the relatively crisp foreground leaves from the amorphous and blurred background.

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

Two Red Leaves

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Two Red Leaves
A pair of very red autumn aspen leaves in a grove in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Two Red Leaves. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A pair of very red autumn aspen leaves in a grove in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

This pair of leaves reminds me a bit of the photograph on the cover of my book, California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra. Like that photograph, this one was made while getting “up close and personal” with autumn aspen leaves, wandering around inside of a very colorful grove in the Eastern Sierra.

Although my opportunities to photograph fall color this year were limited by wildfire conditions and the challenges of traveling during the pandemic, I did get to the “East Side” for a few productive days. In fact, given the challenges while I was there (which I have described in other recent posts) I’m actually pretty happy with the results. It certainly helped that I managed to arrive at peak color at the location where I ended up, and that this year seemed to produce much more colorful trees than usual, with lots of orange and red colors.

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

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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 Leaves, Autumn Color

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Aspen Leaves, Autumn Color
Eastern Sierra Nevada aspen leaves at their peak of fall color.

Aspen Leaves, Autumn Color. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Eastern Sierra Nevada aspen leaves at their peak of fall color.

Most of the time I tend to treat aspen trees as part of the larger landscape, perhaps with a grove or a few trees as the subject, or even including some trees of a larger scene. But every so often I get the urge to wander inside a grove and photograph individual leaves up close. I spent an hour or so doing just that at an Eastern Sierra grove that was full of leaves spanning the full spectrum of aspen color, from green through yellow and orange to red.

I photographed the subjects in this series using a handheld camera and a macro lens. (Typically I would use a tripod and put a zoom lens on the camera.) By shooting handheld I was able to explore a wide range of composition spontaneously. That is useful with this subject since even very small changes in camera position can produce entirely different juxtapositions of foreground leaves and the beautiful blur of background color and light.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

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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

Autumn Aspens, Brush, and Talus

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Autumn Aspens, Brush, and Talus
A row of colorful autumn aspen trees standing between alpine willows and talus, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Autumn Aspens, Brush, and Talus. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A row of colorful autumn aspen trees standing between alpine willows and talus, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

These trees grow in an area widely regarded as iconic for fall color photography in the Sierra Nevada, though if they appear in the usual photographs at all they are perhaps seen as a small element off to the side in the distance. However, they have intrigued me on their own for many years. Since the first time I visited this place I made a point of walking past and underneath them, and eventually I began to consider how they could be photographed from a slightly greater distance.

These trees constitute a segment of a thin line of trees that travels for some distance, thick and wide in some places and separated by breaks in others. In the best years — and this was one of those — they include all of the potential color shades from yellow through orange to red. But the other elements in this scene also are important to me — the bluish rocks of the hill in shadow, the subtler colors of the brush in the foreground flats, and the dark green of the widely-spaced conifers trying to gain a foothold in this meadowy area.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

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