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

Forested Hill, Morning

June 25, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light on trees of an open forest ascending a rocky hillside, Lake Tahoe

More quiet morning light at Lake Tahoe, photographed during my visit last week. We were there for a wedding and up late at night, but I still managed to struggle out of bed shortly after 5:00 in pre-dawn near darkness and head out along the west side of the lake. For such an urbanized and busy place, it is certainly possible to find quiet and solitude in these early morning hours. I saw almost no one else out traveling at this early hour — apparently the beautiful dawn light isn’t quite enough to get others to rise!

The light was the sort that I describe as “interesting.” It was not the all-too-common light of a cloudless blue Sierra sky, nor was it the darkened, overcast light. There were enough clouds to occasionally “turn out the lights” on the warm morning light, but between those cloud shadows warm and soft light passed across lake and rocks and forest. I stopped at a simple roadside turnout, surrounded by forest, when I saw this morning light coming from behind some trees and, nearby, hitting them from the side. This is one sort of quintessential Sierra terrain, with straight but not too tall trees leading up a rocky and sandy slope covered with boulders and manzanita.

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

Morning Forest

June 24, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light filters through forest trees near the shore of Lake Tahoe

Although we were not at Lake Tahoe primarily for photography, and although the previous day had been a busy one — a long drive and a wedding! — I got up before dawn and headed out to see what the morning light might bring. Shortly after 5:00 AM I was out and driving south along the west shore of Lake Tahoe. (Note to others visiting the lake: Get up early! It is beautify and almost no one else is out yet, turning this usually crowded place into one of near solitude.)

The light was tricky. High clouds were in the sky above the mountains along the far, eastern side of the lake, and the early sun was mostly blocked by them. But the clouds were not solid, and as I headed south I started to see sun breaks, and pools of light traveled across the landscape of the west side of the lake, separated by bands of shadow. As I passed this otherwise nondescript spot, a bit of beautiful backlight shone through the trees, so I quickly pulled over… and the light immediately went dark! But soon it returned, and I had found composition that included these sparse trees set in a small valley below me, and I was ready to make this photograph.

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Island, Peninsula, Reflected Clouds

June 23, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The waters of Lake Tahoe’s Emerald Bay reflect early morning sky and clouds and silhouette Fannette Island

I have a long relationship with Lake Tahoe… but very few photographs of the place. When I first began cross-country skiing many years ago — before much of anyone knew about the sport on the west coast — I most often went to Tahoe, skiing the many accessible areas of relatively easy terrain. Later, as the sport developed and dedicated cross-country ski areas began to appear, some of my favorites were in this area. This past weekend, when we had occasion to visit the lake again, it suddenly hit me that I had barely been there at all in the past decade, and that I have almost no photographs of the place.

As I usually do, on one of my mornings at the lake this past weekend, I got up at 5:00 AM and was out the door as the sky was beginning to become light but well before sunrise. As I drove south down the west side of the lake there was a cloud bank above the mountains to the east side of the lake, and initially the light was not spectacular. Eventually, not far from Emerald Bay, beams of light began to penetrate the clouds and the alternating areas of light and shadow moved across the landscape of the west shore. I stopped at a spot that would likely not seem special to most passing by, and made some photographs of the forest as this light back-lit the trees. I drove on, stopping briefly at the Emerald Bay overlook to see the view but not really thinking about photographing here. I continued south and explored a few side areas, filing away a few locations for later shooting, and then turned back to the north, with the plan of getting back to our lodging to join the late-sleepers for breakfast. As I descended toward the inner curve of Emerald Bay I saw the deep blue water, the far edge of the lake in haze, and clouds reflected in the surface of the Bay next to Fannette Island.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Desert Dawn, Storm Clouds

June 22, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 6 Comments

Layers of dawn clouds from an arriving storm above receding mountains and valleys, Death Valley

This photograph comes from just about two months ago, during a photography visit to Death Valley National Park. It has been a very strange weather year in California, and the strangeness continued on this trip. In early April, almost anything can happen with Death Valley weather… and much of that “anything” occurred while we were there. On this day, the main attractions was… snow!

The night before I had decided that it looked like there might be the potential for interesting light up high in the mountains to the west of the Valley. My hope was that the clouds of an incoming weather front my just be making their appearance over the mountains, but leaving the sky to the east mostly clear or perhaps with some interesting clouds around dawn. We were up well before first light and on the road. As it began to be light we could see that there were a lot of clouds coming in, and when we arrived at our intended shooting location the clouds were closing in quickly. I guessed that there might, just maybe, be a brief window of light as the sun rose above mountains on the far side of the valley and, for an instant, might shine light horizontally above the mountains and below the clouds. It didn’t quite happen. (And you can’t always count on the good light. You have to be out there in some light failures if you hope to be there enough to get the miraculous successes, too.) The best we got was a brief and fiery illumination of the undersides of these clouds, above darker lower clouds and the shadowed peaks of the Amargosa Range.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Forested Hill, Morning

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Morning Forest

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Island, Peninsula, Reflected Clouds

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Desert Dawn, Storm Clouds

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

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