Category Archives: Photographs: Nature

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Last Light, Moraine, Trees

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Last Light, Moraine, Trees
The last evening light touches clouds and a rugged ridge above an old moraine and trees growing on a rocky hill

Last Light, Moraine, Trees. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The last evening light touches clouds and a rugged ridge above an old moraine and trees growing on a rocky hill.

When the first seasonal California rains arrive in fall — and snow comes to the Sierra Nevada once again — I’m often still working my way through the archive of photographs from the previous season. As I look back at these (mostly) summer photographs on a day like today, with wind and rain here in Northern California — I often pause to consider how different places like this one are now. When you stop to think of it, what those of us who visit the high peaks in the summer think of as “normal” — those sunny, warm, snow-free days — is actually the exception in a range where it is more likely to be cold and snowy during the majority of the year.


I made this photograph on one of those sunny days around the beginning of September — a fascinating time up there, when it is still the warm season, but when the signs that winter is coming are unmistakeable. After a week of almost universally clear skies, on this evening we had glorious clouds, and everyone was out admiring and photographing the sky and the evening light on peaks. That light is obvious here, but other elements of this scene seemed important to me, too. Those trees on the rocky rise are examples of what we find in this high country — small trees often living in little more than cracks in the rock. And beyond the trees but below the sunlit ridge is a gigantic terminal glacial moraine, one of the biggest I’ve seen in this range.

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: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Intertwined Trunks

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Intertwined Trunks
Tightly laced tree trunks, Southern Sierra Nevada

Intertwined Trunks. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tightly laced tree trunks, Southern Sierra Nevada.

This photograph took some time to arrive in this form. Originally there were two versions of the subject — one was a vertical format version in black and white while the other was a horizontal format color renditions. (If you look around on my website you should be able to find both of those.) I always liked the abstract flow of the portrait-orientation black and white photograph, but I also liked the unusual coloration in the landscape-orientation color versions. And — duh! — it only took me several years to decide that what I really wanted to do was combine that flow and those colors in this version! Sometimes it is not obvious, at least not to me, how I will ultimately “see” a photograph until quite some time after I push the shutter release button.

The photograph explores something that has long intrigued me about high country trees in the Sierra Nevada. While they are, obviously, living things, they live on time scales that are much longer than we know. Even these “stunted” (to use the common description) high elevations trees, despite their relatively small size, are often many hundreds of years old. As such, they seem to me to occupy an intermediate state between our shorter frame of reference of “living” and the much longer time scale of geology. In some cases the trees take on a character that almost seems closer to that of rock. The colors in the photograph may also warrant some explanation, since they may seem unusual for trees. In typical light, these trees would mostly appear to be a combination of grays and browns, but I these trunks were in deep shade and illuminate by late-day light spilling in from the very blue sky.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Alpine Cascade

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Alpine Cascade
“Alpine Cascade” — A boulder in the rushing cascade of an alpine stream, John Muir Wilderness

The large scale (“monumental,” “symphonic,” etc) landscape is so impressive that it is easy to overlook smaller subjects in the wilderness. This is certainly true in the high regions of the Sierra Nevada, where the grand expression of the landscape predominates: great valleys, monumental peaks, immense sky, large stretches of forest. But years spent in all over the range finally taught me that the experience of the Sierra is at least as strongly composed of smaller things — the crunch of boots on the trail, cold pre-dawn air, texture of smooth granite, the sound of rushing water. (OK, the damned mosquitos, too. But let’s not go there!)

Those other things are the hardest to convey in a photograph, I think. (I still am not certain how to photographically convey the sonic experience…) On last summer’s weeklong visit to the high country of the John Muir Wilderness there was plenty of the big stuff to distract us at a first. We base-camped in a high elevation valley surrounded by high peaks that dominated out view. But nearby there were also meadows, and there was water flowing everywhere. I made this photograph of a small cascade only a few hundred feet from our camp.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

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Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Morning Trio

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Morning Trio
Three sandhill cranes raise their beaks to the morning sun

Morning Trio. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Three sandhill cranes raise their beaks to the morning sun.

Sandhill Cranes are, I think, becoming my new “favorite California bird.” I’ve gone through phases. Many, many years ago I read Aldo Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac,” and his description of these birds — which I had never seen — made an impression. I had no idea that they were found here in California, so I didn’t think much more about them for years. There was a period when egrets (“great” and “snowy”) were the birds I most admired, then at times I focused on a few Sierra birds, including Muir’s ouzels. Not that long ago I “discovered” another bird that had been here all along when I started photographing winter migratory geese in California. That experience led me back to sandhill cranes. One of the most magical bird-related experiences I can recall was on one of those goose photography trips. At the end of the day as night fell and photography was coming to a conclusion we heard their sound coming from the southeast as twilight fell… and then huge flocks of them appeared overhead, turned and descended into the wetlands.

The experience of photographing these three birds was perhaps not so miraculous as that earlier event. I had gone to the Central Valley for something else, but since I realized I could arrive early enough to photograph birds at dawn I brought along my photography equipment. After doing some first-light photography at a spot where finding the birds was, well, a no-brainer… I decided to explore a bit and see if I could find them in more isolated locations. I found a small group of sandhill cranes in a muddy field that was partially shielded from a nearby roadway by tall brush. I stopped, stood behind my car to avoid scaring the birds, put on a long lens, and watched. They were engaged in a number of ritual behaviors, including the well-known “dancing” activity associated in most cases with mating. I’m unfamiliar with the striking behavior in this photograph or its meaning, a ritual in which groups of birds lean their heads back and in unison open their beaks.

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