Category Archives: Photographs: Yosemite

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

Forest, Tarn, and Granite

July 8, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Sierra forest and granite reflected in the surface of a small tarn, Yosemite National Park.

Having visited the Sierra and the Yosemite high country for more than a few decades, I have become attached to a number of small and unlikely little places that have personal meaning to me. This is one of those odd little spots. At a point along Tioga Pass Road there is a small unmarked turnout like many other such turnouts along this route. One time a few years ago I stopped here for reasons that I can no longer recall. I got out of the car and noticed a very faint path leading away from the road – so, of course, I took it! It led though tightly spaced trees and towards a small canyon, passing several small ponds along the way. I also recall mosquitos. Lots of mosquitos.

Since that time I have returned to this spot quite a few times – in snow on the day that the road first opens, on sunny summer days like this one, and on damp and foggy evenings in late fall not long before the highway closes for the season. Where is the spot, exactly? All I’ll say is that it is in Yosemite and that you can get to it by walking away from Tioga Pass Road. Frankly, I don’t think the specific location really matters to anyone but me and perhaps a few others who might stop here, too. There are thousands of such little spots throughout the Sierra, and it is your discovery of your own personal places among them that can make them special.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Trees and Granite Slabs, Sunset

July 7, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sunset light on granite slabs and lodgepole forest, Yosemite National Park, California.

I made this photograph almost a year ago, during a Sierra Nevada summer that was much wetter and greener than the current season. I had driven to the Yosemite high country and found a campsite, then set about looking for photographic subjects. Often on my first day in the high country, I do only a little photography. Instead I spend the first part of the day driving, the middle part finding and setting up a camp, then eating, and only after that wandering off to look for things to photograph in the evening. On these first days, the evening photography is somewhat spontaneous, depending upon the light conditions and where I ended up camping.

On this day I first took a late afternoon hike into an area that is visited a bit less frequently, going there to photograph some granite and water. However, I neglected to bring mosquito repellant, so this hike turned into a mad scramble to make it back to the car before the bugs managed to suck out all of my blood! After that I simply visited a series of familiar locations along Tioga Pass Road, more or less heading back in the direction of Tuolumne Meadows and stopping here and there to make photographs as the subjects and the light caught my attention. At the time of the very last light I found myself near this very accessible and very familiar granite formation, so I quickly grabbed my gear and walked up slabs to make this photograph as the last momentary bit of direct sunlight struck this dense grove of pines.

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

Spring Torrent, Impossible Tree Fall

June 12, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

An early spring snow-melt torrent flows over Impossible Tree Fall, Yosemite National Park, California.

This photograph takes me back to last year in mid-June, on the day that the Tioga Pass Road opened for the season. That was a very different year than this drought year! Back then the pass opened very late – though not the latest ever – and in mid-June there was still water, snow, and ice everywhere! One of the special treats of crossing the pass on the first day of the summer after a very wet winter is that the landscape comes alive with flowing water. Water is on the move almost everywhere. Rivers are full to their banks and beyond, waterfalls flow across almost every cliff, and there are creeks everywhere, including places that you might never have imagined they would flow when you visited later in the season.

This small cascade flows very close to Tioga Pass Road, tumbling down over boulders and a series of small benches and ledges. One of the most notable features is the single tree growing right in its path, seemingly “impossible” not only because its roots seem attached only to bare granite but also because it grows in the middle of a seasonal waterfall! I came upon the fall a bit later in the morning, when the rising sun was just barely topping the ridge above the waterfall, sending light down across the slopes and backlighting the tumbling fall.

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

Trees and Evening Sky

June 10, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Trees silhouetted against cloud-filled evening sky, Yosemite National Park.

The last time I posted a photograph of more or less this scene, the colors were so bright that you almost needed sunglasses! The photograph was made on an evening that ultimately turned into one of the most astonishingly colorful ones I have experienced in the Sierra – and I have experienced a few! Although that evening began with what most might regard as extraordinarily unpromising light – murky haze and overcast – I had an idea that these might be just the conditions in which the sun drops below the edge of the clouds far to the west just before sunset and then lights the clouds from beneath, a situation that can suddenly turn the sky into a psychedelic kaleidoscope of colors.

Eventually that is just what happened. But this photograph was made just before that show began, or perhaps during the very first stages of it when it was not at all certain what might develop. There were high, thin clouds in the sky to the west, and they began to glow a bit with evening backlight, so I lined up this little group of trees on the granite slabs and photographed them in silhouette against the sky. A few minutes later… it was not going to be time to be making black and white photographs!

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Yosemite

Forest, Tarn, and Granite

Trees and Granite Slabs, Sunset

Spring Torrent, Impossible Tree Fall

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.