Category Archives: Photographs: Nature

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspens and Early Snow, North Lake

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Aspens and Early Snow, North Lake

Aspens and Early Snow, North Lake. Sierra Nevada, California. October 4, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An early autumn snow fall dusts the ridge above the aspen groves at North Lake, Sierra Nevada, California.

Another photograph from my early October 2008 visit to the Bishop Creek area. On the first morning I left Bishop very early, waiting only long enough for the local Starbucks to open. (There I admired a couple of Vern Clevenger photos hanging on the wall – his gallery is next door – and saw a few other bleary-eyed photographers getting some much-needed coffee.) Although the weather was clear in Bishop, it began to cloud up as I drove up toward North Lake. When I arrived before sunrise it was cloudy there, but it looked the conditions might be good for some early morning aspen photography.

But not for long. Almost as soon as I took my gear out of the car the wind came up, the temperature dropped and it began to rain and then snow. I quickly holed up in my car to wait it out, and an hour later the sun began to emerge in between the light snow showers. This well known grove of aspens on the far side of the lake climbs a valley toward the ridge. Although many leaves came down quickly in the wind as the front passed, there was still a lot of color in the grove. Here there is still light snow falling on the ridge, even as sunlight slants in from the right.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Grove, Morning Light – North Lake

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Aspen Grove, Morning Light - North Lake

Aspen Grove, Morning Light – North Lake. Sierra Nevada, California. October 5, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light filters through yellow and golden leaves to light and color the forest floor beneath an aspen grove at North Lake, California.

These aspen trees are in the roadside grove near the “tree tunnel” at North Lake, in the Sierra Nevada above Bishop, California. After shooting the “big views” around North Lake that include the surrounding peaks, I walked back to this accessible grove and spent some significant time walking slowly among these trees, looking for interesting compositions. One feature that drew me to this image was the softly colored light shining through the canopy of colorful leaves and gently illuminating the sides of the aspen trunks; the light forms of the trunks themselves also interested me.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Grove, South Fork Bishop Creek

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Aspen Grove, South Fork Bishop Creek

Aspen Grove, South Fork Bishop Creek. Sierra Nevada, California. October 4, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Slender aspen trunks topped with golden autumn leaves near the South Fork of Bishop Creek.

This beautiful grove of slender-trunk aspens with only a few leaves left in their crowns was a lucky find. In the evening I went out looking for groves that were in the shadow of the high peaks of the valley below South Lake. I ended up on a small one-lane gravel road that didn’t seem to be getting too many visitors besides me. I found this grove near the end of this road just before it rejoined the main paved roadway, and just as the fading light provided saturated colors in the trees’ crowns to provide contrast with the paper white color of their trunks. (There is quite a bit of fine detail in this photograph that isn’t visible in the small jpg image posted here.)

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Leaves, North Lake

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Aspen Leaves, North Lake

Aspen Leaves at North Lake. Sierra Nevada, California. October 5, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Colorful autumn aspen leaves at North Lake, California.

After being snowed on at North Lake the previous morning, I returned again on this day and concentrated on photographing aspen leaves, branches, and trunks in a grove along the side of the lake and near the famous “tree tunnel” that so many have photographed here.

To add one point… while I love the color and light of the large aspen groves and love to photograph their astonishing colors as well, I think I have come to prefer photographing the smaller details of these groves: a few leaves, some branches, perhaps against a background containing some rocks or trees that have lost their leaves.

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