Autumn Color and Sierra Crest Peaks. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early autumn color in a landscape of rock and forest below peaks on the east side of the Sierra Nevada crest.

This is, as some of you may notice, a portrait-orientation photograph of a scene that I recently shared using the landscape orientation. Why two different approaches, you may ask? That could be a bit of a complicated question, as there are multiple possible reasons. Heck, you might just wonder if I was able to make up my mind! In fact, this scene “works both ways,” I think. The landscape orientation goes with the long horizontal stretch of the distant ridge and the band of colorful aspens at the bottom, and it also reveals some additional color that lies outside of the vertical image to the right. On the other hand, I think that the vertical interpretation may do a better job of presenting the scale of the vertical rise from the foreground to those towering, distant peaks. I could go on, but I’ll end by pointing out that sometimes both orientations prove useful, so I don’t shy away from doing both.

The scene is a long canyon in the Eastern Sierra that rises from the hot, dry terrain of Owens valley, ascends a long river drainage that twists and splits and gradually transitions to subalpine forest, and finally culminates well into the alpine zone with its rocky terrain and high peaks. Canyons like this one can be good places to look for aspen color in the fall — for one thing, because they cover such a large elevation range there is likely to be color somewhere within them over a relatively long period of 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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Autumn Color and Sierra Crest. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early autumn color in a landscape of rock and forest below the east side of the Sierra Nevada crest.

Thoughts of autumn have begun over the past few weeks. I can imagine all sorts of reasons. As I have written, that mysterious “something” that indicates that the seasons are changing appeared recently, right on schedule. (I attribute it to changes in light, the angle of the sun, the time of sunset and sunrise, and perhaps a few other things.) Here in the West, it may also be triggered by an intense desire to see the end of the hot, dry conditions that plague us during this time of global climate change. I miss cooler weather!

This, of course, gives rise not only to ideas about where to go to photograph this year’s color, but also to reexamination of autumn photography from prior years. This photograph comes from a few years back, during the relatively wet interval between the previous five-year drought and the current drought. I made my first fall color visit in very early October that year, hitting a few of my favorite places and checking out a few new ones that are less known. This location is more the former than the latter, a very large system of canyons draining the eastern Sierra above Bishop, full of rivers, forests, and plenty of rocky terrain leading to the crest of the range.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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