Category Archives: Photographs: Yosemite

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

Morning Light on Granite Ridge

September 14, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early morning light strikes trees on the ridge of a glaciated dome above Tenaya Canyon, Yosemite National Park

Yosemite is known for many things — the Valley, waterfalls, and other familiar sights — but above all it should probably be known simply for granite. (Apologies to geologists ,who know that “granite” is a simplification, but I’m going with it.) The cliffs and domes of Yosemite Valley are well known, but I’m especially thinking of the higher regions of the park, where one is hardly ever far from granite slabs, granite boulders moved about by ancient glaciers, granite stream beds, granite faces, granite ground into sand…

This is one of those locations where it is possible to look in the right direction and focus your attention on a particular area… and see almost nothing but granite. Here a glaciated granite ridge, topped by sunlit trees, is backed by a glaciated granite wall in shadow, with a glacial granite canyon lying between the two. The surfaces of such places are fascinating. A close look at the sunlit ridge reveals large granite boulders, with trees and small strips of meadow. Below that ridge is a large expanse of exfoliating granite slabs with trees eking out a living on little more than bare rock.

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

Meadow, Forest, and Dome

September 11, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Afternoon light along the edge of Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park

Late in the afternoon, about the time that many day visitors leave Tuolumne Meadows for their lodgings and when many campers are fixing dinner, I wandered out into the meadow with no particular destination in mind. With the exception of a few other walkers and two or three deer, I mostly had the meadow to myself. I walked slowly along a narrow finger of grasses between trees encroaching that are gradually encroaching on the meadow, passed through the last trees in one of these stands, and found myself in a large section of open meadow. After so many years in the Sierra and particularly in this place, it has a quiet and comfortable and unhurried feeling on an evening like this one.

Farther downstream the larger forest trees came to the edge of the meadow, and late afternoon golden light slanted across the meadow past these trees. Beyond the shoulder of a granite dome sloped down toward the lower terrain, catching the sun from the west.

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

Sierra Forest, Morning Light

September 9, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

First morning light arrives in dense Sierra Nevada forest

Spend enough time somewhere and you begin to develop surprising relationships with surprising little places that perhaps no one else would even notice. Since I’ve been going to the Sierra for decades, I’ve had plenty of time to find my own “little places” and to begin to understand and value this. Some decades ago, when my backpacking experience became extensive enough that I often found myself back at places that I had previously visited, I was surprised to discover that particular rocks (like one at a high country lake where I often set up my camp kitchen, or another where I once sat and watched a storm blow in), creeks (such as one near 11,000′ in the southern Sierra where I have camped alone and with friends), trees (such as the one we discovered decades ago on a trip with kids, shortly after it had been blasted apart by lightning), and others acquire a quality of old, familiar friends.

This little bit of forest has become one of those places. It is not quite in the “back-country.” In fact, it is a scene that I drive past on my way to other places. But a few years ago it caught my attention and I began to inspect it every time I passed by, sometimes stopping to look more closely. I cannot quite articulate why or how it is that this bit of forest became “mine,” but it did. I was camped nearby on this morning and had gone out to look for light when I remembered the spot and arrived just as the first direct morning sunlight was beginning to enter the grove.

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

Mount Dana

August 28, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening light, Mount Dana and Dana Meadows

On an evening early in my mid-July visit to Yosemite’s high country, I parked my car along Tioga Pass Road and next to a meadow that is an old friend of mine, shouldered my pack and tripod, and wandered slowly into the landscape, knowing that there was too much to see to warrant hurrying. I dropped to a low flat area, only to discover that water was flowing across it beneath the meadow foliage, so I spent a bit of time looking for a dry path through the section. A bit further on I climbed a low rise with glacial boulders and small trees on top, and I paused here to look for a while and then made a few photographs before moving on.

The photographs from this spot included some of this slope leading toward the summit of Mount Dana, the second tallest peak in the park at just over 13,000 feet of elevation. From my location in this subalpine meadow, the terrain gradually ascends through dense forest, with trees gradually becoming smaller, past the tree line to where only smaller shrubs and bushes grow, and on up to alpine tundra. Clouds shrouded the peak on this evening, leftovers from early thunderstorm weather. Of all these things, photographically I was most interested in the close meadow, rocks, and trees Oddly, when I returned home I initially ignored this photograph, but later on I went back and looked again and ended up feeling that it conveys a true sense of this sort of country.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Yosemite

Morning Light on Granite Ridge

Meadow, Forest, and Dome

Sierra Forest, Morning Light

Mount Dana

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