Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Panorama, First Light

Image October 24, 2019 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The very first dawn light touches the tips of peaks in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

This photograph comes from our weeklong expedition into the John Muir Wilderness back at the end of August and the first few days of September. To recap, “we” are a group of photographers who photograph the Sierra backcountry every year. (The group’s history dates back almost two decades, and I’ve been coming along for about ten years.) This year we were sponsored by Yosemite Renaissance, so we were accompanied by a several other artists connected with that organization. We typically set up a backcountry base camp in a “target-rich” location, and then spend a week getting to know the place and photographing the heck out of it.

I made this photograph mere steps from my tent. I got up before dawn, wandered around looking at subjects in the quiet pre-dawn light, and finally arrived back at this lakeside location as the first light touched the tops of the peaks. An advantage of staying in one location for a period of time is that you can scout a lot, determining best times and angles and finding lots of potential subjects. This one was on that list — I had visited it previously when the light was less conducive to photography, filed the location away along with a mental note about timing, and then returned a few days later at the appointed time.

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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

First Fall Color

Image October 23, 2019 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An eastern Sierra Nevada aspen grove with first signs of autumn color.

One of the risks of starting my annual Eastern Sierra fall aspen color hunt a bit early is that I just might arrive too early for the color! That was mostly the case this year, when I made my first aspen-focused trip right at the beginning of October. The timing of the color transition can vary a bit from year to year, but I usually bet on the start of widespread color coming near the end of the first week of the month. Last year it came earlier — I photographed large groves of small trees at a location near the Sierra near the end of September, and I found good color close to the start of the month. That experience led me to start early this year.

There was some color when I arrived on October 2, but it was not widespread. Some of the higher elevation “scrub aspen” growing on rocky soil were changing to yellow, but most of the larger trees were still green. There were a few notable exceptions where groves had changed. More common were sights like this one — mostly green trees, leaning toward the lighter “lime green” color that comes before the transition, plus a few actual yellow leaves. This particular grove presented me with a special lighting situation. The trees were in the shaded bottom of a deep canyon, but across the canyon and beyond my camera position there was a large open slope that lay in direct sunlight. This rocky terrain reflected the warmer-colored light directly into the grove, giving a bit more light to the trees along its edge.

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Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Night

Mono Moonrise

Image October 22, 2019 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The light of the rising full moon reflected on the surface of Mono Lake.

This is another of the autumn photographs that isn’t really an autumn photograph, except perhaps by extension. I was in the eastern Sierra for about eight days in the first part of October, primarily to chase the fall aspen color. But that most certainly is not the only thing worth seeing in and around the Sierra at this time of the year. The night before we had watched the moon rise well after dark and speculated about when (and precisely where) the full moon would rise the next night. We did not have any authorities to consult, so we made a good guess that it would probably rise just after sunset, which still provides enough ambient light to illuminate the landscape a bit and to reduce the contrast between the bright moon and its relatively darker surroundings. As sunset approached we left the place where we had been photographing aspens and I pulled over at a likely spot… which turned out to be almost precisely the right place to be.

We looked up just in time to see the first sliver of the moon emerge above the small peak barely visible at the left end of the ridge beyond the lake. We were set up and ready to go by the time it cleared the ridge, and we spent the next few minutes continuing to photograph as the moon rose, the surroundings darkened, and the reflection on Mono Lake become more prominent.

Special Announcement: Sharing this night photograph of mine is timely, as later this week I and my colleagues from Studio Nocturne SF, a collective of Bay Area night photographers, are offering an “Open Studio” as part of annual the San Francisco ArtSpan event in The City. We are showing our work at Big Daddy’s Antiques, 1550 17th Street on the following schedule:

Friday: October 25, 6:30PM-9:00PM — Artist Reception
Saturday, October 26: 11:00AM-6:00PM — Open Studio
Sunday, October 27: 11:00AM-6:00PM — Open Studio

All three events are free and open to the public. If you are in the Bay Area, please drop in and say “hi,” enjoy our photography, talk with us about our work, and acquire a photograph for your collection.

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Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Above Mono Basin

Image October 21, 2019 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A long view into and across Mono Basin and Mono Lake in the early morning.

You certainly cannot tell from the photograph, but this was a very cold autumn morning in the region east of the Sierra Nevada crest. We work up at our camp in one of the Eastern Sierra canyons before dawn in temperatures that were around 20 degrees Fahrenheit — cold but not unusual for early October. We headed east, out past Mono Lake and then climbing into nearby mountains. Along the way the thermometer in our vehicle went as low as nine degrees! When you are only a few weeks past the end of summer, that feels very cold!

From this high point on a long ridge overlooking Mono Lake we could see a vast expanse from near to far. Just below us was a bit of conifer forest (and nearby some aspens), but the landscape here is mostly sagebrush country. Far below we looked across the two volcanic islands of this lake to its far shore, and beyond that the hills and mountains climbed here, with the most distant peaks (barely visible in the late-season wildfire haze) well above 10,000 feet.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.