Category Archives: Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Late Winter, Sierra Foothils

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Late Winter, Sierra Foothils
Bare trees, new grass, overlapping hills, and late-winter haze in the Sierra Nevada foothills

Late Winter, Sierra Foothills. Near Mariposa, California. February 28, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Bare trees, new grass, overlapping hills, and late-winter haze in the Sierra Nevada foothills

Back in late February we spent a few days in Yosemite Valley in connection with the opening of the 2016 Yosemite Renaissance show in The Valley. While we were there we also photographed in the Valley, which is always a pleasure in winter, a time of year full of special subjects and conditions.

We left the Valley to head home and had time to take a round about route that would take us past one of our favorite migratory bird locations at sunset, so we wandered a bit in the Sierra foothills around Mariposa. While driving one back road we spotted this landscape of bare trees, brand new grasses, and hills receding into the winter haze.

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: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Wildflowers, Rocks, and Grass

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Wildflowers, Rocks, and Grass
Flowers and new grass at the beginning of the “green season” in the Sierra Nevada foothills

Wildflowers, Rocks, and Grass. Sierra Nevada Foothills, California. February 28, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Flowers and new grass at the beginning of the “green season” in the Sierra Nevada foothills

Today I went for a hike — not in the Sierra Nevada foothills but in a place where some of the same seasonal cycles are found. The hike took me up to a ridge, where I followed a trail along its crest. It was hot and dry, and the hills were covered by brittle, brown grasses. That’s how summer works in much of California. People who come here from the east or the north are often taken aback by what looks like a dead and dry landscape, and they may not be able to see the beauty in it.

But it isn’t that way all year. In fact, during winter, when many of those green-in-summer places are freezing or buried under snow, much of California erupts into what I call the “impossibly green season.” Believe it or not, this photograph was made in February in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Snow was still falling in the higher mountains, and it would continue to do so for several more months. But here in the low hills along the western edge of the range, winter rains had resurrected the grasslands and caused the wildflowers to bloom

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

Winter Dawn, Sacramento Valley

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Winter Dawn, Sacramento Valley
Winter clouds at dawn above the Sacramento Valley

Winter Dawn, Sacramento Valley. Great Central Valley, California. January 8, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Winter clouds at dawn above the Sacramento Valley

Today it is close to the end of June, the start of the hot season in California, and it has been nearly 100 degrees where I live and hotter than that where I made this photograph. It is, at it is every year, hard to believe that it was only months ago that I was out in this spot on a freezing January morning, with snow-covered peaks to my east and west, watching the first dawn light on these spectacular clouds and listening to the sounds of early morning flights of migratory birds across the wetlands.

For this I will get up at 3:00 am and drive three hours in the pre-dawn darkness. I had not visited this location before, and as I turned off of Interstate 5, the main artery up this valley, and headed east on a two-lane road I wasn’t sure what I would find. The sky was beginning to glow and it seemed that sunrise was coming soon — perhaps too soon for my arrival. I turned off onto a gravel road and headed into this refuge, passing the entrance and heading out onto the perimeter road just in time for this astonishing morning light show.

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, Photographs: Yosemite

Granite Slabs

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Granite Slabs
Filtered sunlight on granite slabs, Yosemite National Park

Granite Slabs. Yosemite National Park, California. September 12, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Filtered sunlight on granite slabs, Yosemite National Park

While many may associate waterfalls with Yosemite, especially if their experience is mainly with Yosemite Valley, it is simply granite that comes to mind first for me. Yes, there are beautiful forests, and many wonderful lake, and rivers, and wildlife, and more — but all of those play out against the backdrop of the ubiquitous Yosemite granite. It comes as cliffs, shattered rock on mountaintops, domes, and beautiful slabs.

I spent a week photographing around a backcountry lake in early September 2015, during the time of awful wildfires and a lot of smoke — in fact, that smoke was partially responsible for the filtered light on the day I made this photograph. Within a few minutes of our campsite, huge slabs of granite rose up from near the shore of the lake and climbed many hundreds of feet up toward sharp granite ridges high above. This section, glaciated in the past and then fractured by ice and water, was sculpted into beautiful shapes.

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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