Calphoto – a quick note

It looks like the Calphoto Fall Color in California page is back up and running with lots of updates. This has been one of the best California fall color sites for several years, and if you visit right now you’ll see lots of useful reports.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

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Detail, Brick Buildings

Detail, Brick Buildings

Detail, Brick Buildings. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. August 30, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Details of the walls, windows and roof of brick buildings at the historic Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California.

This may be the final photo in the recent Mare Island series for a while. (Or maybe not… ;-)

This photograph shows the details of some of the old brick buildings not far from the power plant. They were photographed in twilight as I was wandering around prior to beginning the real night photography work. Although it is difficult to see in this small jpg, there is some really wonderful light on the small structure atop the roof that comes from the open view towards the sunset to the west. Also a bit hard to see here – but perhaps visible in a larger print – are the puffs of fog that were just starting to blow in off of the water and which catch a bit of the reddish early evening light.

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

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More Links to Current Eastern Sierra Fall Aspen Color Reports

I’m catching up on some online reading this evening, and thought I’d share a list of some reports on eastern Sierra fall color that I’ve come across. In no particular order:

  • A quick eastern Sierra fall color update from Greg Russell/Alpenglow Images – Greg’s brief report mentions visiting the Bishop Creek area on Saturday along with visits to Rock Creek and June Lakes Loop.
  • Richard Wong offers a brief report on Bishop Creek Canyon Fall Color at the California Nature Photographers blog. (Yes, my report from this weekend is posted there, too.) Richard covers several areas in the Bishop Creek and North/South/Sabrina Lakes area.
  • The Eastern Sierra Fall Color group on Flickr includes a lot of recent on-the-scene photographs (you may be able to use them to make some decisions about your destination) and the discussion forum includes a lot of posts by those who are there and have been there recently. There is also an interesting thread on the all-important question of where to eat in the eastern Sierra! (Discussion forums only open to group members.)
  • Elizabeth Carmel’s Landscape Photography blog points out a Sacramento Bee Interactive Guide to Fall Colors. (The guide has some interesting and useful information – perhaps most importantly a map with many great aspen locations identified. However, the interactive part of the guide would be even more useful if the information was a bit more up-to-date. I wonder if they might think about building something like this with input from a larger group of photographers who are on the scene?)
  • Journal of My Travels for the Perfect Photo, Inge Fernau’s photography blog, has lots of good advice and reports on photographing Sierra aspens.
  • It looks like Carol Leigh may be updating her Fall Color in California page once again. This is one of the “classic” sites for locating information about this topic, and typically includes lots of reports from those in the field. (I’m wondering though, if it is a bit less current than in the past. (I recently sent an update last week and it never appeared on the page…)
  • Greg A. Lato has posted a sequence of three posts about his visit to the eastern Sierra. Visit his latoga Photography site and then look for the “recent blog posts” section lower on the page.
  • Leon Turnbull reports on a visit to the giant aspen groves at the top of Monitor Pass and a perhaps unfortunate abundance of certain other travelers while he was there. (The groves atop Monitor Pass are huge, and seem to me to be a bit less well-known than some of the areas further south. I was a bit surprised at his report that many of the trees had not yet changed colors, since I frequently find that they change here just a bit earlier than in some other locations on my circuit. A good aspen route is to go up over Carson Pass and then over Monitor to highway 395.)
  • The Life on the Eastern Slope blog mentions conditions in Lundy Canyon, Tioga Pass, and other nearby areas. (I drove past but did not enter Lundy Canyon on Sunday – I could see colors up high above Lundy, but cannot offer first-hand info on conditions down in the canyon. I also went over Tioga Pass twice and saw some pretty good colors just east of the pass, though colors down in Lee Vining Canyon have not changed yet.)
  • I mentioned it earlier, but it is worth mentioning that Michael Frye posted a bit of a guide to photographing fall colors in Yosemite. (For the record, if you are looking for great aspen photography opportunities, Yosemite is not your best choice. But there are other types of fall color in Yosemite that bring me back every year.)
  • Greg Boyer has posted his Fall Color Update #8 from Bishop. His view is that this coming weekend will likely be the prime time to shoot – which is pretty much in line with what I’m thinking. I would not be surprised to find that some areas in the upper Bishop Creek drainage will have lost leaves by then, but there are tons of trees a bit lower… and many other eastern Sierra areas should be in great shape. (But watch the weather – there is a chance of a change this weekend.) Other entries at Greg’s One Horse Studio blog also offer good information and perspectives on fall color.

Whew! I’m sure I’ve missed some other useful resources – feel free to share via a comment.

Mare Island Power Plant, Dusk

Mare Island Power Plant, Dusk

Mare Island Power Plant, Dusk. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. August 30, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The power plant and surrounding buildings at the historic Mare Island Naval Shipyard, photographed at dusk as fog rolls in overhead.

While I mainly go to the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard to do night photography, I like to start before dark when the evening light is still present. I have photographed this old power plant, with its iconic and widely visible smoke stack, in the past – both at night and at dusk. This building faces to the west and is open to the late light.

Previously when I have photographed it in these circumstances I’ve tried to include more of the surroundings – the neighboring buildings, the road in front, the railroad tracks that pass by and head into the distance. This time I swapped out the wide lens for a telephoto and decided to work for images that are more tightly cropped and which focus more on details of the building.

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

Web: G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.