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

Burned Forest, Autumn Color

November 1, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn colors in a forest of burned trees, Yosemite Valley

During this final weekend of October I spent a few days photographing in the Yosemite area, including along the road between Oakhurst and the Valley and then in Yosemite Valley itself. I had quite varied weather conditions — pouring rain on the first day as I drove up from the Bay Area, beautiful evening and morning fog followed by a sunny autumn day, and then a weather forecast of heavy rain that convinced me to beat a retreat from the park a day early.

Late on the second afternoon I stopped at a very popular and iconic location in the Valley, but I walked the other way, heading out into an area of rock, dry meadow and oak trees that gradually transitioned into conifer trees and big leaf maples, the latter being at their peak of fall color. Knowing the Valley pretty well at this point, I often prefer to look past the big sights and just wander, and that’s what I did here, eventually ending up in an area that had been burned recently by a management fire, clearing out the underbrush and charring the lower trunks of tall trees. In fact, the lower trunks were so affected that there were no branches to obstruct the view of the maples just beyond or of the vertical granite cliffs a bit further away.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Two Small Trees, Autumn Fog

October 31, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A few autumn maple trees are scattered in a Yosemite National Park forest on a foggy morning

I admit it. I got distracted. This past week I had reason to visit Oakhurst, California, just below the southern boundary of Yosemite National Park. I drove up there in tremendous rain, had my meeting, and then headed to The Valley for a few hours of photography. As I drove up from Oakhurst the forest was wet and fog was everywhere — perhaps the ideal conditions for all color — but I kept driving, wanting to get to the Valley before the light was gone. At one spot inside the park I caught a glimpse of a bright yellow big leaf maple tree in a small gully leading away from the road, but I did not stop.

I was back in Oakhurst that night, and then up very early the next morning with a plan to arrive in the Valley again by daybreak. I headed up from town again, but once again there was fog, though less of it. Three things I cannot resist are autumn color, fog, and forests — so when I passed this spot again I quickly decided to turn around and come back to make some photographs. This is a complex photograph, the opposite of the minimalist images I like to produce (see some recent Mono Lake photographs for examples), but that is the nature of forest scenes like this — they are an utterly harmonious whole created out of a very complex set of components. And, even better, they are mysterious and quiet and still.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: England, Photographs: People, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

London Street Scene

October 30, 2016 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

People on a crowded London street

This will likely be one of those photographs that perplexes people who follow me for my nature, landscape, and wildlife photography. On the surface it seems like the virtual opposite of those photographs, but there are similarities. This is a kind of landscape — the urban landscape — and it is possible to see it in ways not that different from how we might see the natural landscape, with attention to patterns, to light, to distance and perspective, and more. And the people here are, in a sense, the “wildlife” of this urban world.

It is a little bit tricky to articulate just what I saw or see in a photograph like this. Of course, it does “record” a particular scene from a certain busy area of London. But it is also a sort of accidental tableau in which figures arrived in positions and relationships that somehow caught my attention. And, perhaps obviously, color is part of what happens in this photograph. Beyond that, I’ll leave the viewer to speculate.

Photographs: England, Photographs: Urban/Street

Rain, Fallen Leaves, Reflections

October 29, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A pedestrian walks post a small garden in the rain near the Tate Modern, London

It may be a bit hard to see in this small version of the photograph, but the walkway, made dark and reflective by light rain, is covered by a universe of small leaves that have fallen from the row of trees that stretches to the right and out of the frame. I was also attracted by the complementary red and green colors of reflections and leaves.

The location is not far from the end of London’s Millennium Bridge and at the entrance to the Tate Modern, where we went to see a wonderful exhibit of Georgia O’Keeffe paintings. (And, yes, it did seem slightly strange to be visiting the exhibit of this American painter in a British museum.)

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Burned Forest, Autumn Color

Two Small Trees, Autumn Fog

London Street Scene

Rain, Fallen Leaves, Reflections

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