Pond, Evening Reflection, Peaks. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening light on peaks is reflected in a pond on an alpine stream.

Photographers often get to experience evening quite differently from the way typical backpackers do. I know, I’ve done both for years. A typical end of the day backpacking: Get to camp, find spot and set up tent, move gear into tent, set up cook area, filter water, perhaps wander around a little bit, fix dinner, then most likely sit around camp or take short nearby walks until night fall. A typical end of day for backcountry photography: Come back to life in the middle/late afternoon, grab a snack or even dinner, load up pack of camera equipment, head out of camp for some (occasionally distant) location, start photographing, work the scene as the light changes, stay on the move and keep photographing as sunset approaches, a burst of photography at sunset and a bit after, finally photography winds down, walk back to camp in partial or complete darkness, arrive back at camp and perhaps have dinner in the dar,.

In either case there is something — how to describe this? — slow and quiet about the approaching evening and then nightfall. Interspersed with moments of intense photography — after all, the light may change quickly — are longer moments of quiet contemplation. Frequently that is how the photography ends, with that work slowing to a stop I stop and often just stand or sit quietly a bit in the failing light. I made this photograph a bit earlier, as I headed up toward a higher ridge and a lake, but the feeling of oncoming quiet still pervaded the scene.

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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.

Lake, Peaks, Morning Light. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early morning light reflected in the water of an alpine Sierra Nevada backcountry lake.

Yes, I am still mining the vein of photography from that week-long Sierra backcountry trip with a fine group of fellow artists — the “first light gang” and a few other good folks who joined us on this year’s adventure. We spent a week in a beautiful 11,000′ subalpine valley, a place filled with meadows, rocks, and water; and surrounded by high peak and lots of beautiful, rocky lakes. The peak in this photograph dominated the view from our camp, and it figures in much of the work we brought back from the trip.

A relatively short distance above our camp, just up a hill and on the other side of a low saddle, there was a rockbound subalpine lake whose shoreline ran up against the base of this peak. I’m pretty sure that we all made multiple trips up there, often in the very early morning, hoping to work with the first light of the day. On this occasion I arrived before the sunrise light touched the peaks, and I then continued to photograph as it worked its way down the rocky terrain.

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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.

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

Treeline Landscape. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Glaciated slabs, meadows, stunted trees and higher peaks near treeline in the Sierra Nevada.

A recent post from Scot Miller, one of the photographers on this backcountry photographic excursion, reminded me that I still had at least one more photograph of my own from this summer 2019 trip into the John Muir Wilderness. This scene was steps from my campsite for a week in this 11,000′ valley, a week during which we had a chance to thoroughly explore and photograph the area.

When I go through my photographs following such a trip there is an almost inevitable cycle to how I work with the photographs. Often I come back with a few specific images that I recall making and looking forward to post-processing… and I typically work these up first. Then I go back through the work and “discover” additional images that I might have paid less attention to but which immediately catch my attention. Eventually I continue to work through the archive and I begin to find more subtle photographs that I like for a range of reasons. This one, to me, has a kind of quiet quality that I like, in part because it suggests the stillness of these locations, but also because it conveys, I think, the contrast between the intimate, such as that nearby tree, and the immense, such as that distant eastern escarpment cliff face.

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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.

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