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

Fall Foliage, Yosemite Valley

November 9, 2009 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Fall color in a meadow near Yosemite Falls – Yosemite Valley, California.

I decided to push the boundaries of “ideal shooting time” on this one – it was made less than an hour before noon in midday light that might often have me starting to take my midday break. I think two things made it possible to shoot this subject in this somewhat difficult light. First, the light coming through the leaves of these black oaks (and to some extent the cottonwoods in the distance) creates an effect that it not typical of midday shooting. Secondly, the deeply shaded cliff walls along the south side of The Valley gave me a background that was not harshly lit. (The bright grasses in the meadow were a bit tough, but I think they are under control here.)

It might surprise some to find out that this landscape image was made using a relatively long lens – a 70-200mm zoom at about 130mm. Here it helped me control the composition – making the trees seem a bit closer to one another and affecting the area of the cliff seen beyond.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Three Aspen Trunks, Lichen Covered Rocks

November 8, 2009 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Three small aspen trees with fall color leaves among small plants grow from a crack in lichen-covered rocks – Sierra Nevada, California near South Lake.

Yet another variation on the “bare aspen trunks with some leaves, photographed against granite” theme – I can’t help myself! :-)

This is another of several photographs I made along the road below Parcher’s Resort on the way to South Lake in the eastern Sierra above Bishop, California. At this early October point in the season there are almost endless ways to approach photography of aspens – still-green aspens, aspens barely starting to change color, newly colorful aspens among still-green aspens, aspens at the height of their yellow/orange/red color, aspens past peak starting to thin a bit, aspens with only a few beautiful leaves remaining (and the rest littering the ground beneath), aspen trunks bare of any leaves and waiting for the winter to arrive – and all of these shot in an infinite variety of light, in an infinite variety of settings, with an infinite variety of compositions.

So I hope no one minds if I continue to post a few more. :-)

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Commentary, Technique

If ‘Photoshopping’ is Cheating

November 7, 2009 G Dan Mitchell 13 Comments

I recently read (another) article suggesting that work done in the post-processing phase using digital tools lessens the value of the photograph and suggests that the photographer is less than competent or perhaps “cheating” – and that real photographers get it right “straight out of the camera.”

There is much more to say about this bizarre notion, but for now here is a little “thought experiment.”

In order to believe that image modification in digital post-processing is cheating or otherwise lessens the value of a photographer’s work as art, it seems to me that you would have to accept that a whole list of analogous traditional film photography techniques must be equally wrong, including:

use of filters
use of swing, tilt, shift
choosing a film based on its “personality” (One word: “Velvia”)
dodging and burning
selecting and/or altering film development methods in order to alter the image
selecting different grades of paper for different prints
using any focal length other than “normal” – whatever that means
cropping
spotting prints
any use of artificial lighting or reflectors
pre-exposing negatives
the original USM technique done with negatives
any corrections to the color balance of the original capture
all black and white photography – as the world is never black and white

Of course, every one of these and more are standard stock in trade for photographers working with film and traditional darkroom techniques.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Bare Aspen Trunks and Boulders

November 7, 2009 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Granite boulders stand behind a row of nearly bare fall aspen trees near South Lake, Sierra Nevada, California.

This is one more photograph from my early October aspen-chasing expeditions to the eastern Sierra. On this trip I ended up in the Bishop Creek area and on this cold, slightly snowy, early fall day I ended up at one point along a section of roadway just below Parcher’s Resort near South Lake. Below Parcher’s there is a meadow – I parked there and spend some time wandering up the roadway past this area of steep, jumbled rocks and aspen trees and other foliage.

A note about the light in this photograph: I had passed by this area before – on previous visits and earlier during this trip – and thought about how I’d like to photograph here in diffused, shaded conditions. So I made a plan to return much later in the afternoon when I knew that the sun would move around behind the ridge about this spot and leave it in shade, but with some light coming in from the open sky and ridge on the other side of the valley – pretty much exactly the sort of conditions I look for when I photograph this type of subject.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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