Category Archives: Photographs: Fall

Photographs of fall color

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Nature

Blue Hour, Wetlands

December 16, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Late autumn evening clouds reflected in wetlands of the San Joaquin Valley.

I have become a passionate photographer of winter migratory birds in California’s Great Central Valley, and I spend as much time as possible out there between late fall and the start of spring. For most of my life I was almost completely unaware of the great migration that takes place just a couple of hours east of my home and midway between there and “my” Sierra Nevada. For a few months this valley that seems primarily like farmland (at least to us coastal folks) for the rest of the year becomes a wildlife haven.

But it isn’t just about the birds. The birds may be the main draw, but they are certainly not the whole show, and the landscape itself fascinates me, especially with its surprising and varied effects of atmosphere and light. The ubiquitous fog creates mystery and the clouds of winter weather fronts produce beautiful skies. The dusk ending of a day out here rarely fails to produce some twilight magic.

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

September Rain

December 6, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

September rain falls on a Yosemite backcountry lake

Autumn in the Sierra is time of wonderful transitions — it is my favorite time of year to be there. For the most part the weather is still beautiful, with warm days and pleasantly chilly evenings and early mornings. The light is special — it is hard to put my finger on the precise quality, but somehow it feels warmer and softer than in the summer. Meadows turn golden brown and many plants take on their autumn colors. It feels like everything is slowing.

There can also be storms. These are not the brief afternoon thunderstorms of summer. They are the first harbingers of winter — the large Pacific weather fronts that begin to push in and which will eventually bring winter snow. We had such a storm — though it was a gentle one — on our visit, and it rained off and on for the final two days of our stay. I made this photograph along the shoreline of “our” lake, with fall colors in the foreground and a passing shower in front of the distant peak.

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 Shoreline

December 4, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn colors arrive along the shoreline of an Eastern Sierra lake

This photograph represents a bit of a step back from the more intense Sierra Nevada colors of some of my other fall color photographs. Here many of the colors are muted, and the light is soft. The upper trees have already lost their leaves — early, as a result of the drought — and the foreground plants lining the lakeside marsh have largely gone dormant. A few conifers and some sagebrush appear around the edges of the frame.

This lake in the Eastern Sierra is the location of some spectacular fall color, too. In fact, this photograph intentionally looks away from some peak colors that were occurring nearby on this morning. After photographing so much intense color for several weeks, I think I was enjoying the muted quality of autumn storm light as it began to rain and eventually rain on this beautiful and quiet October morning.

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

Grove of Bare Aspen Trees

November 24, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A few autumn leaves linger on a grove of bare aspen trees, eastern Sierra Nevada

No, I’m still not done with my photographs from autumn 2015 in the Sierra Nevada! This year I first photographed this grove in late September, much earlier than would normally be the case. Even then many of the trees had already lost their leaves, seemingly in response to the fourth serious drought year in the Sierra. The drought affected trees in a variety of ways, ranging from early color change to simply dropping leaves without a color change to seemingly going dormant. (Other trees that were less stressed seemed to change later than usual, perhaps in response to later warm temperatures resulting from climate change.) I was less than satisfied with those first late-September photographs of these trees, so I thought more about them after returning home and made a plan to return the following week and refine my ideas.

And that’s just what I did. I made this photograph one week after those first images. This time I spent less time at the grove since I already had a fairly clear idea of what I was trying to produce. Given how few leaves there had been the week before, I was somewhat surprised to find any color still left here — but I was also happy that there was some! Bare and near bare late-season aspen trees seem compelling to me, for reasons I cannot quite put my finger on. Is it that they signal the fine, incontrovertible end of the warm season? Or is it that they signal the certain arrival of the beauties of winter? Perhaps there is something about these bare trees standing in groups and their promise of new life the following spring? When there are still just a few colorful leaves remaining, as in this scene, somehow the effect seems even stronger.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Fall

Blue Hour, Wetlands

September Rain

Autumn Shoreline

Grove of Bare Aspen Trees

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