Category Archives: Photographs: People In Landscape

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: People, Photographs: People In Landscape, Photographs: Photographers, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Photographer Patricia Mitchell

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Photographer Patricia Mitchell
Photographer Patricia Mitchell at work in early morning autumn light in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Photographer Patricia Mitchell. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Photographer Patricia Mitchell at work in early morning autumn light in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Someone has a birthday this week, so it seems appropriate to feature a photograph of, um, someone here. Photography is often a solitary activity — one person, a subject, a camera, how to see — and most of the time the two of us photograph alone. But every so often we get a chance to head out together on a trip that involves photography. We had such an occasion earlier this fall — and it has been too long! — when we did a weeklong trip that took us to the Eastern Sierra Nevada and then to Utah and a few nearby locations.

We started in the Sierra, where we headed into the eastern part of the range in search of fall color. Perhaps “search” is the wrong word here, as it is easy to locate! Instead of going to the “usual places” we wandered up some less-travelled roads, including the one that took us to this spot right beneath the eastern escarpment, a place with very few other people where the high desert and the beginnings of true mountain terrain intersect. We arrived on a brilliantly lit morning, with fall color everywhere, and a bit of early snow still on the peaks.

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: People In Landscape, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Travel

Bridgeport, Autumn Sky

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Bridgeport, Autumn Sky
Clouds from an autumn weather front build a above Bridgeport, California.

Bridgeport, Autumn Sky. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Clouds from an autumn weather front build a above Bridgeport, California.

For those who aren’t from my part of the American West, it is probably important to state up front that this is “the other Bridgeport,” the one in the dry eastern part of California. The town is located in a broad valley at the base of the Sierra Nevada, more or less northeast of Yosemite National Park. The valley is full of cattle grazing in its extensive pasture lands that somehow escaped the clutches of the historic Los Angeles water rights grabs in the eastern Sierra. In addition to cattle, the places relies a lot on campers, anglers, backpackers and other visitors to the outdoors — though in a more laid-back, old-school manner of places a bit off the beaten track. Oh, it is also known for being (at least in my experience) one of the two or three most expensive places in the state to buy gas for your vehicle.

To those of us who live in far more urbanized areas — for me, that is the San Francisco Bay Area — places like this have a bit of an appealing raw edge, a sense that they are closer to the cycles of the natural world and, to some extent, dominated by them. On a day like this one, when the clouds of a Pacific weather front fill the sky, the town itself seems quite small in relationship to the landscape that surrounds it.

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: People In Landscape, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Hot Shower $5.00

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Hot Shower $5.00
An inviting sign on a door at a trailhead packstation in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Hot Shower $5.00. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An inviting sign on a door at a trailhead packstation in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

I have been a Sierra backpacker for a long time. How long, you ask? A significant number of decades. My first backpacking trip, something I had dreamed about for a few years, was the summer I turned 16. Two buddies and I headed off into the Desolation Wilderness for something like five days. Unsupervised. (I still cannot believe that my parents allowed this.) Both friends had at least some backcountry experience, one with his family and one in the Boy Scouts. But this was all entirely new to me.

Often we think of the peak moments in the backcountry, the astonishing sunrises, climbing to the summit of a peak, and encounter with wildlife, visiting a place to which few others have been. Or perhaps we tell “hero stories” — the time I took a five day pack trip with a broken toe, my first solo (two weeks long), bad weather, getting lost. But the truth is that a lot of the experience is based on some pretty simple pleasures: sitting on a comfortable rock as the day ends, eating that freeze-dried food out of the pot, traveling for days with friends… and that shower at the trailhead when you return from a week or more in the backcountry.

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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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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: People In Landscape

Abandoned

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Abandoned
Abandoned vehicles at a desert mining site.

Abandoned. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Abandoned vehicles at a desert mining site.

When you travel even a bit in the desert landscape (at least the California version that I know) you will come across evidence that you are not the first visitor. The original residents left behind fragile, compelling, and sometimes beautiful evidence in the form of rock art. (Treat them with respect, leave them as you found them, and don’t share their locations.) Later immigrants left traces that seem less attuned to the nature of the place. But over time, as they weather and degrade, they start to almost seem to be part of the landscape, and they make us pause and imagine coming to such a place to live and work. (Surprisingly, perhaps, some of these sites are only decades old.)

A bit of exploration in Death Valley National Park reveals many examples. Some, like this one, are not hard to find, and they may feel like intrusions in the landscape. Others are more remote and sometimes not immediately obvious. One of the most powerful experiences I had in this landscape came on my first visit years ago, when I wandered up a large fan and sat on a rock to rest. I happened to look down and notice one stone among the others — one that had been shaped for a purpose many years ago. I picked it up, turned it over in my hands, and tried to imagine the life of the person whose hands had shaped it. I put it back where I found it and returned to 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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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.