Category Archives: Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Imaginary Landscapes, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Morning Forest

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Morning Forest
“Morning Forest” — An “imaginary landscape” photograph of a foggy morning forest scene, using in-camera motion bur.

From time to time I experiment with ways to portray the landscape in a more abstract fashion. I often refer to these photographs as “imaginary landscapes.” While the line between “real” and “imaginary” can be pretty fuzzy in photography, these photographs make no pretense of portraying the objective facts of the scene. (To be clear, no photograph is fully objective, but I digress…)

In this case I used intentional (or perhaps unintentional — you decide) techniques to blur the details of the scene, leaving the biggest elements intact but leaving a lot to the imagination. The original scene is the edge of the forest next to a small lake on a foggy morning.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Trees, Evening Light

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Trees, Evening Light
“Trees, Evening Light” — A row of pine trees at the edge of a subalpine meadow catches the last evening light.

Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows, in the park’s high country, gets special and quite changeable evening light. The meadow runs roughly east-west, so the setting sun sends its light along the meadow’s length. As the sunset develops, long shadows play across the landscape, interrupted by bits of warm light here and there.

I suspect that most people looking at this photograph may get a sense of calm and stillness. That’s not inaccurate, but photographing this ephemeral light is quite different from photographing more static subjects. In fact, I was working madly to grab this frame before the last bit of warm light on the trees was consumed by the encroaching shadows.

Leave a comment or question using the form. (If you are reading this on the home page, click the article title to see the full article and the comment form.

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. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Boulders, Tuolumne Meadows

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“Boulders, Tuolumne Meadows” — Large granite boulders strewn across Tuolumne Meadows.

This is another of those locations that are best photographed very early or very late in the day, and preferably without the distraction s of large groups of photographers. It was evening, and I drove to Tuolumne Meadows from my camp to look for quiet light on meadows, boulders, and domes.

The Meadows are beautiful in the late-day light, which softens and can turn golden. Here a pile of large rocks, almost certainly glacial erratics, dominates the scene, and light from the setting sun comes from just outside the camera’s frame. In the distance we see peaks of the Cathedral Range.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Two Shorelines

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Two Shorelines
“Two Shorelines” — Shoreline trees, meadows, and rocks reflected in the water of a small subalpine Sierra lake.

Many of my photographs from this July backpack trip in the Eastern Sierra featured views of the “grand landscape” — long and high mountain ridges, lakes backed by tall mountains, and so forth. This one focuses on closer subjects including the shoreline that I was standing on and the meadow and sparse forest on the other side of this small bay.

I made the photograph early in the day, at just about the end of my morning photography. The soft and warm light of early morning was fading away and beginning to be more harsh. I was first interested in the little rocky outcropping just to the left of center, and I thought it would be interesting to juxtapose that with the further forest across the water.

Leave a comment or question using the form. (If you are reading this on the home page, click the article title to see the full article and the comment form.

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. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.