Tag Archives: aspen

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

Slender Aspens, Autumn

October 15, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Slender aspen trees with fall foliage grow high on a Sierra Nevada slope

Sierra Nevada aspens come in a tremendous variety of shapes and sizes. On rocky, dry slopes, where the trees seem to eke out an existence in truly marginal conditions, they are frequently small, with skinny branches and sometimes a bit of a haggard look. In other areas, perhaps influenced by the quality of the soil, they have stout trunks but never get very tall, instead growing in bent and twisted shapes. In a few places, often in the bottom of valleys, they may take on the classic aspen shape — tall trees with straight trunks — though this is less common in the Sierra than in some other places. Sometimes they grow very high on rugged slopes, like the trees in this photograph, and while they are relatively straight and shapely trees, they are also very small.

This group grows high on a slope above an area of dense, tall, and thick aspens, and those other trees usually attract more attention with their dense leaves and intense fall colors. But sometimes I almost like these smaller trees more, especially when some of their leaves have fallen and their bare, white trunks are more visible. Even more, I like to photograph them early and late in the day, when the light reflected into shaded areas warms and intensifies the colors and fills in the shadow.s

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: Sierra Nevada

Eastern Sierra Pack Station, Fall Colors

October 14, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn cottonwood and willow color at the McGee Creek pack station at the base of McGee Canyon

These eastern Sierra Nevada canyons have long fascinated me. My initial orientation to the range came from decades of approaching the mountains from the west, where they rise gradually, beginning almost imperceptibly with small irregularities and hills far out in the eastern portions of the Great Central Valley and then build slowly over many miles to eventually reach the Sierra crest. I “discovered” the east side of the range decades later, and was amazed by the contrast. Rather than beginning in the gentle west side grassland and agricultural areas, the base of the east side is frequently high desert, a spare and dry land of sage and open vistas. The Sierra begins abruptly, and in some cases you can stand at the actual base of the escarpment and look almost straight up to peaks that are many thousands of feet above you. The east side is cut by many short but deep canyons, where steep creeks drain a terrain originally cut by glaciers. In a very short distance — often traversed in a single day — one can move from high desert to the alpine zone.

In addition to focusing on that landscape, this photograph includes an element representing another component of life on the east side, a trailhead pack station. Here, too, my experience was such that I only recognized the role of these outfits more recently. For decades I was primarily oriented to the range as a backpacker and, to be honest, I regarded those using pack animals as representing an intrusion in the wilderness experience that I sought. (On the other hand, I recall many years ago seeing the occasional individual backpacker leading a single donkey along the trail, something you almost never see any more.) A few years ago I began to work with photographic colleagues who use pack trains once each year to get into the back country to photograph in ways that are more or less impossible when traveling on foot, and before long I had my first real experience with packers. I’m less certain of my old disdain for those who rely on pack animals, and I’m now much more aware of the long history of these pack outfits in the eastern Sierra. My perspective has changed. While I think that their place must evolve, I also have come to think of them as an intrinsic part of what makes the Sierra the Sierra, and I have acquired a real respect for the wranglers and the work they do.

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

Eastern Sierra Sunrise, Autumn

October 13, 2015 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

First light on rugged, snow-dusted ridges above aspen-covered Parker Bench

This is a special place, high along the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada and open to the first dawn light from the east. It is also just far enough off the beaten track and difficult enough to access that it is usually not very crowded. (Don’t worry if you can’t get to it, there are thousands of other places where you can have a similar experience in the eastern Sierra.) We recently got up early enough to drive here and arrive well before sun rise. To this day, despite seeing many sunrises, I still often am surprised at how quickly the light comes and how silently. Living in a culture in which every spectacular thing, or thing that we are supposed to regard as being spectacular, is pumped up with loud music and lots of action, the sunrise comes often comes in complete silence and with little warning — you look up and notice that the light has already struck some small element of the scene, and soon you discover it moving across the landscape and quietly lighting more and more bits and pieces. I made this photograph when this first light had hit the rugged upper slopes above this aspen-covered bench, but before it had worked its way down to the trees.

This photograph also illustrates something I finally figured out about this strange eastern Sierra fall of 2015. This year the season began oddly, with very early first color in many places. In addition, many groves simply did not have leaves — either they lost them so early that I never saw them or perhaps they did not put out leaves this year. In other groves the leaves went almost straight “from green to gone,” with little or not brilliant color phase. Where this happened, I think it was the result of the four-year drought creating tremendous stress on the trees. At the same time, other climate factors thought by some to be associated with the drought also had the effect of delaying the color change of trees that were not as stressed by the shortage of water. Instead, these trees are changing later, likely due to overall warming temperatures. So far, this has been a season not quite like any other I’ve experienced. In this photograph you can spot examples of almost all of these conditions — completely bare groves, groves that have turned and already dropped leaves, some that are going straight from green to having no leaves, and even some trees that are still very green.

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

Aspen Forest and Hills

October 9, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Ranks of autumn aspen trees ascend the slopes of the Eastern Sierra toward the crest in afternoon light

This is a photograph of brilliantly colorful eastern Sierra fall foliage… in black and white. Because I can! The location is along US 395 as it passes along the eastern escarpment of the range, and in this spot the hills are terraced upward toward the Sierra crest, high above and out of sight in this photograph. Aspens grow in abundance on these lower slopes, interspersed with grasslands, and leading to more aspens up higher and eventually to conifer forests.

I like to photograph in this area in the late afternoon, when low angle sun light comes streaming over the top of the mountains and backlights the trees and accentuates the effect of haze. While the close trees probably first got my attention, it was the little row of trees in the far distance, seen near the upper margin of the photograph, that eventually intrigued me the most. Why black and white? To be honest, one reason that I thought of this at the time I made the exposure was that, frankly, the colors were not yet at their peak. As I though about that it became clear to me that this photograph was not so much about fall color as it was about fall atmosphere — that softening and warming of the light, the gentle haze that mutes the details of more distant subjects. And I thought of this as just a little bit of a personal challenge. Frankly, it is probably easier to make a photograph in color that says “autumn.” But I know that black and white photographers have been able to accomplish the same thing, and I thought it would be interesting to give it a try myself.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: aspen

Slender Aspens, Autumn

Eastern Sierra Pack Station, Fall Colors

Eastern Sierra Sunrise, Autumn

Aspen Forest and Hills

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