Category Archives: Photographs: Sierra Nevada

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

Three Aspens, Granite

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Three Aspens, Granite
Three autumn aspen trees standing against a granite wall, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Three Aspens, Granite. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Three autumn aspen trees standing against a granite wall, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Those of us who have spent a lot of time in the Sierra — and the story is similar for other locations — gradually accumulate “personal spots” that might not make much of an impression on others but which we greet like old friends each year. Mine include a particular rock outcropping in Tuolumne Meadows, a particular flat rock in the Yosemite backcountry where I’ve frequently placed my cook stove, a small grove of trees nestled in a bend along an Eastern Sierra road, a high and barren lake in the Southern Sierra, and quite a few more. I’ll bet you have a few such places of your own.

This little group of three slender aspen trees set against a jumble of rocks s is one of those spots. It is very accessible, but there’s an excellent chance that if you were nearby you passed without noticing. Yet virtually every autumn I end up stopping and photographing them again. (Yes, there are other photographs of them in my collection.) They are “the same,” yet they are also different every time I visit — the leaves may be green, yellow, a combination, or gone. The light may be intense in the morning or soft and blue in late-day shadows. So I return, and I photograph them again, and I mark another season with each return.

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

Aspen Reflections

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Aspen Reflections
Autumn aspen trees reflected in an eastrern Sierra Nevada pond.

Aspen Reflections. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Autumn aspen trees reflected in an eastrern Sierra Nevada pond.

Each year at about this time I ask, “Is it ever too early to start thinking about fall color?” The answer, of course, is no. Autumn is my favorite season for all kinds of reasons — the colors, of course, but also the return of cooler temperatures and “interesting” weather and shorter daylight hours. The period between Labor Day and the arrival of late-autumn snow is my favorite time in the Sierra. There’s nothing as beautiful as a late-September or early-October day in the high country.

As a person who has photographed Eastern Sierra aspens a lot — and who has written a book on the subject — the way I see this subject has evolved over the years. While I’m still impressed by a hillside completely full of colorful trees, I am constantly looking for other ways to photograph this subject. Here I aimed the camera down toward the surface of an Eastern Sierra pond, framing to exclude anything but the brilliant colors of a grove on the other side of the water.

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: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Dawn Clouds, Mono Basin

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Dawn Clouds, Mono Basin
Dawn clouds above Mono Basin

Dawn Clouds, Mono Basin. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dawn clouds above Mono Basin.

Traveling to the eastern Sierra Nevada, I end up in Mono Basin and areas around Mono Lake with some frequency. Highway 120 through Yosemite is my most-used trans-Sierra route, and it intersects with US 395 at Lee Vining, which sits right above the lake. I pass through even when I cross via one of the other passes to the north.

The most common photographs of the area generally feature relatively close-up views of the tufa towers that are found in places along the Mono Lake shoreline. I have photographed those, too, but they aren’t what most characterizes the place for me. What sticks with me about. the lake and this entire basin is the vast stillness and silence there on most days. I made this photograph early on a mid-October morning from a high vantage spot along the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada.

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Mount Tom, Tungsten Hills

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Mount Tom, Tungsten Hills
Mt. Tom and the Tungsten Hills along the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada.

Mount Tom, Tungsten Hills. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Mt. Tom and the Tungsten Hills along the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada.

This photograph memorializes one of a series of very dry winters in California, a period many of us remember as the great drought. For five years little rain fell in most of the state and in other parts of the West. The Sierra Nevada snowpack suffered, and consequently the forests were decimated and water shortages were a very real concern everywhere.

The view of the Sierra seen here is what you might typically see at some point in June or even a bit later, when the winter snow pack has diminished to the point that high country travel starts to become easier. But this was early January! I passed through here on my way home from Death Valley and recall being shocked at the bare peaks on the east side of the 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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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