Tag Archives: afternoon

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

Afternoon Haze, Ridges

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Afternoon Haze, Ridges
Forested ridges, silhouetted in the afternoon Sierra haze, on opposite sides of the Tuolumne River Canyon.

Afternoon Haze, Ridges. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Forested ridges, silhouetted in the afternoon Sierra haze, on opposite sides of the Tuolumne River Canyon.

A group of us were camped at a backcountry lake in Yosemite National Park for the better part of a week a few years back. Actually, we’ve done that a few times now that I think of it. This lake is a quiet and gentle place, surrounded by forest, but with a few nearby peaks and on one side a huge vista into and across a deep river canyon. Our little group photographed the heck out of this place, working the landscape morning and evening, and gradually working outwards to learn more of the surroundings.

On this evening I had hiked up from the lake through a narrow band of forest, then continued to ascend across granite slabs through more open country. Arriving at a high point I turned around and looked back over the basin holding “our” little lake and waited for the colorful evening light. Of course “waiting” doesn’t mean sitting and doing nothing — it means photographing other things, including this other tree-covered rocky ridge running down toward the lake and the further landscape whose details are muted by late-season haze. If you look very closely you might just make a sort of “Where’s Waldo” discovery in this scene….

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: England, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Windows, Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great

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Windows, Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great
Afternoon light enters through windows at the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, London

Windows, Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Afternoon light enters through windows at the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, London

This photograph comes from the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great (what a wonderful name!) in London, photographed on a visit there way back in 2013. As we often do when traveling in places like this, we came upon this subject essentially by accident. We were walking in the vicinity because we had come to look at something else, paused to eat lunch in a pub, then headed outside with no particular goal in mind, saw an interesting doorway down a street, and went in. “Discovering” things by accident seems to be a theme of my approach to travel.

There are a few other things connected to this photograph. First, it is (obvious from the date of the exposure) another of the lost-but-found photographs uncovered from my old raw files as I work my way through them as a pandemic project. Because of a project that some folks are working on, it is also one that features glass as a subject. Finally, the process of working through the old files has reminded me again that “making” a photograph is very much not an act of clicking shutter buttons. It begins with seeing, then to “capture,” but what happens between that and the existence of a final photograph can be a very long and convoluted process.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Rainbow and Afternoon Shower

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Rainbow and Afternoon Shower
A rainbow and afternoon showers in the Kings Canyon National Park high country.

Rainbow and Afternoon Shower. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A rainbow and afternoon showers in the Kings Canyon National Park high country.

This photograph is a somewhat different “take” on a scene and subject that I shared in another photograph a few weeks ago. A group of us had been camped near this little tarn (and dozens of other nearby lakes) for over a week as we photographed the heck out of the area. This spot was perhaps a ten minute walk from our base camp, so we visited often and photographed the area in a variety fo conditions — morning and evening, sun and rain.

Being established in one backcountry location for a lengthy period of time has all kinds of advantages for photography. While you might not see as large a swath of the range, you do see the smaller area in much more detail. Speaking for myself, my mental attitude toward the landscape changes in these circumstances and instead of always looking for the big thing I start to look more for the unseen thing or the unanticipated way of seeing it.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Sierra Showers

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Sierra Showers
Afternoon thundershower clouds reflected in the surface of a raindrop-dappled alpine lake, Kings Canyon National Park.

Sierra Showers. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Afternoon thundershower clouds reflected in the surface of a raindrop-dappled alpine lake, Kings Canyon National Park.

As I was getting ready to post this photograph I was pondering, as usual, what to write about it. As I considered the focus of what I ended up writing here today it occurred to me that this one photograph could be the starting point for an entire book. (Don’t worry, I’ll keep this post considerably shorter than that.) It could naturally lead to subjects including my visits and return visits to certain locations in the Sierra, the experience of spending long periods in the backcountry, what and how to see there, the sensory experiences of things like afternoon rain, how non-iconic subjects evoke these things, my good fortune in photographing the backcountry in the company of good friends during the last decade, and much more…

But that’s far too much for this post, so I’ll just share a little background. A group of five of us isolated ourselves at a very high backcountry location for a week back in 2013. We photographed morning and evening every day, in very diverse conditions, and we hung out together through the slower midday hours. There were many lakes nearby, and on this afternoon I had walked the short distance to one of them and was photographing when the afternoon showers began. For me, this photograph conjures up all of the associations I have with that trip and with afternoons like this one.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

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