Category Archives: Photographs: Yosemite

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

Tree Above Glen Aulin

November 22, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A lone tree above Glen Aulin, with haze-obscured domes and cliffs beyond in late-afternoon light, Yosemite National Park.

I think this is a bit of an unusual perspective on the valley that contains Glen Aulin and on the haze-filled valley of the Tuolumne River beyond. I wasn’t quite sure where I would shoot on this evening, but my friend Karl Kroeber mentioned that he had ascended a nearby hillside by means of a granite “whaleback” to find some interesting vistas above. So I decided to check out this hill and started up the hill beyond our camp. The hike wasn’t very long and I soon found my way to the top of the whaleback, where there was a low, long granite dome topped with a few glacial erratics. The dome provided a 360 degree vista taking in the Tuolumne River canyon, peaks to then north and northeast, the dome-like ridge across the valley below me, and a bit of the valley holding the trail towards McCabe Lakes.

At first the photographic potential of the scene seemed a bit limited. While this panorama was appealing, when I arrived it was still not all that late in the day and frankly the light was a bit blah. But since I didn’t have any other pressing engagements nor any other specific plans about what to shoot, I decided to devote the next hour or so to hanging out on top of this dome and waiting to see what the light would do. At first I thought that the shot might turn out to be something back up towards the start of the drop of the Tuolumne into this canyon. I made a few exposures of that scene but so far don’t think I have anything amazing. Then some broken clouds passed overhead and I made some photographs of the alternating patterns of light and shadow on the trees of a nearby ridge.

Then something much more interesting began to happen as it become later in the afternoon. Looking back past this nearby tree and into the Tuolumne River canyon, the sun began to backlight the trees on the nearest ridge and to increase the visibility of the haze. Some claim to dislike this sort of haze, but when backlit it can create some subtle and glowing effects and enhance the sense of depth and distance in the scene. So I ended up working a variety of different “takes” on the backlight, including this one that places a closer tree almost square in the middle of the frame.

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

Tuolumne River Canyon Below Glen Aulin

November 22, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

The Tuolumne River enters Tuolumne River Canyon below the Glen Aulin High Sierra Camp.

This photograph looks west from a rocky point along the Tuolumne River just below Glen Aulin in the Yosemite National Park back-country. In September I spent a total of four nights in this specific area and photographed in and around the granite bowl that rises from the river near the foreground rocks and spreads to the right of the area shown here. The photograph was made very late in the afternoon – it had been raining when I arrived at Glen Aulin but, as often happens in the Sierra, the clouds dissipated later in the day and the skies were starting to clear before sunset.

While my favorite Sierra landscape is at the elevations where the last small trees give way to alpine tundra meadows and the rocky slopes of the highest peaks, there is also something very compelling about these lower (from my point of view) elevation areas, and especially about this particular spot along the Tuolumne. Looking west from this point along the river I had the distinct feeling that I was standing more or less on a boundary between the higher and more alpine zones (exemplified by the Tuolumne Meadows area) and the beginnings of the lower areas in which I feel like I’m heading towards the Central Valley. Here, all of the really tall peaks are behind me (OK, some are to my right…) and before me the land overall drops towards the Valley, the slightly hazy light and air of which is in the far distance in this photograph.

Making this feeling even stronger for me is the fact that very close to Glen Aulin, the Tuolumne abruptly changes from a generally meandering river that descends very gradually for the most part past large meadows and forests to one that drops precipitously into an increasingly narrow and steep canyon surrounded by granite slabs and domes and peaks that begin to take on an appearance that reminds me of Yosemite Valley.

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

Trees and Granite Bowl

November 21, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A variety of trees grow on a shallow layer of sandy soil in the middle of a large granite bowl, Yosemite National Park.

While the small, stunted and contorted trees that grow in impossibly small and barren cracks in the granite are amazing examples of how life can thrive with minimal support and against all odds, in some ways these groves of larger trees are at least as surprising. This group includes some very large and old specimens, yet they are growing in what cannot be much more than a foot or so of sandy soil washed down the surface of this glaciated granite slab – which elsewhere within its area supports nothing this extensive. In what must be the lowest part of the descending surface of the bowl, where perhaps more moisture is found and more sand and gravel transported, this “soil” – largely sand mixed with rocks and boulders – has collected and somehow these trees have managed to put down roots that allow them to grow and fill out a small grove.

I made the photograph in the very late afternoon as the sun was heading toward real evening light. The light is coming in at a low angle from the left and is just beginning to take on the warm coloration of evening. Because it was partly cloudy, I waited until the shadow from a thin cloud muted the light on the granite surface of the bowl in the background.

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

Granite Slab After Rain

November 20, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Details of a section of glaciated granite slab following an afternoon rain storm, Yosemite National Park.

Yet another photograph of rock today as I continue to mine the vein (yeah, awful pun) of these photographs from a glaciated granite area along the Tuolumne River made during my mid-September week-long photography-focused backpack trip.

Since it may not be apparent in the jpg, let me try to explain a little bit about this photograph. It had been raining lightly in the afternoon, and as evening (the “good light hours!”) approached the rain began to let up but things were still very wet and the clouds had not completely dissipated. We walked to a nearby granite bowl full of interesting photographic subjects, among them the beautifully red stained rock that is somewhat unusual in this granitic area of the Yosemite high country. The colors were brought out more clearly by the moisture left on the rocks by the rain. In this photograph I looked for an interesting bit of the rock and simply pointed the camera straight down to capture a “scene” that includes exfoliated layers of rock near a joint in the slab and bits and pieces of “small stuff” that typically ends up in these places: some moss growing in the wet cracks, a few rocks in other colors, twigs, dry pine needles, and the endless variations in the texture and coloration of the stained rock.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Yosemite

Tree Above Glen Aulin

Tuolumne River Canyon Below Glen Aulin

Trees and Granite Bowl

Granite Slab After Rain

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