Tag Archives: aspen

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Fall Aspen Color, Boulder Mountain

April 16, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Brilliant autumn aspen color on Boulder Mountain, Utah

I produced a lot of photographs in the state of Utah in 2012. Although I had not photographed there before (as astonishing of an omission as that seems!) I think I did a pretty good job of making up for lost time. I made three visits to the state, one in spring and two in the fall, and spent a total of about 35 days on the road to, from, and within Utah. I plan to go back!

On that first spring visit we drove over the shoulder of Boulder Mountain between the Escalante and Torrey areas before the new spring foliage had yet come to the extensive aspen groves found in that area. Being an aspen aficionado I could imagine what these slopes must be like in the fall when the foliage changes, and we made a plan to try to pass by here again in the autumn. Not being completely familiar with the seasonal patterns in this part of the country, we might have been just a bit late for peak Utah color – in general we saw brilliant aspen color in many places, but it had already passed at the higher locations, and we soon learned that the cottonwood color comes a bit later in the month. So when we left the town of Boulder to follow the road up and over the Boulder Mountain area, we had a combination of some brilliantly colorful groves at the lower and perhaps middle elevations and higher groves that had more or less completely dropped their leaves. That is the scene in this photograph, made in early evening light on a day when there were some high clouds – and the shockingly colorful foreground trees are backed by the bare trunks of winter aspens higher up the slopes of the mountain.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspens and Granite, Autumn

January 2, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Aspen trees with golden autumn leaves grow among boulders on a rocky eastern Sierra Nevada slope

Before my single day of eastern Sierra Nevada aspen photography this season, I had been concerned about the quality and timing of the color – and reports by some other photographers who visited just before I was there were not encouraging. Reports mentioned trees that had turned earlier than usual (true) and trees that turned without producing special color and so forth. Compounding my concerns just a bit was the fact that my schedule required me to be there a bit earlier than the time I would typically regard as being prime for aspen color. But I’d rather shoot one day of less-than-stupendous aspen color than miss the entire show, so up into the eastern Sierra above Bishop, California we drove.

I was pleased to find that there was actually a lot of great color. Some of the usual “hot spots” that people seem to flock to were perhaps not as amazing as they can be, but after photographing the aspens for some years I have found some odd little personal places where I could find good color – and in a few places color that was downright excellent. I photographed these trees rather late in the day, perhaps after many people who prefer to photograph aspens in the sun had already left. I intentionally sought out an area that I knew would be in shade since I often prefer the muted and softer light this brings. Here the trees are not quite so thick since they grow on very difficult and rocky slopes. But what they lacked in density they made up for in color!

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Grove, North Bishop Creek

November 8, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

An aspen grove along North Bishop Creek in late afternoon light.

While I like huge, expansive groves of aspens, I also like small, isolated groups, especially when set against the background of what I think of as sage brush country. This group of trees is actually part of a long, thin grove that stretches along a small dirt side road up in the Bishop Creek drainage. The grove and the road are on my “must visit” list for my annual aspen-chasing trips to the eastern Sierra, so by now I’ve learned a lot about the “personality” of this particular spot. Like a number of other spots to which I return each year, you might not notice anything spectacular about this grove – but by means of repeated visits I have learned where to look for certain little subjects: a creek that flows past boulders beneath colorful trees, a particular thick grove of very thin-truck trees, groves of trees that seem barely taller than I am.

I made this photograph in what might seem like unlikely lighting conditions. It was late afternoon, and the trees were back-lit. The sun was close to dropping behind the very tall ridge that lies above and beyond the border of the photograph, so the light was angling across the several background ridges running down into the valley, and lighting their upper edges. And, of course, the leaves glow when the light come through them from behind.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Aspen Grove, Old Road

November 7, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

An old dirt road winds into the heart of an aspen grove in full autumn color, Dixie National Forest, Utah

This is another of the “could have been anywhere” photographs, both because little scenes like this can be found all over the American West and because it is a scene that I simply happened to notice while passing by. So, the specific location is most certainly unimportant, though I’ll say that it was along a gravel road running through a section of the national forest in roughly the Zion/Cedar City area, a road that we had turned up more or less randomly and then explored for perhaps a couple of hours before turning back. The goal of that little drive had been to get into or as close as possible to some extensive forests of colorful aspen trees that we had seen from a distance. We succeeded.

There is something evocative on a number of levels about a simple scene like this one – with factors including the literal and subjective aspects of the changing season, the image of the small road disappearing into the grove as it wanders off to an unknown place, and the light of autumn filtered through the golden canopy of aspen leaves. If you don’t pay careful attention when you are there you might miss it, but the golden color suffuses the entire understory when the light is just right. (Photographers and painters may notice this sort of thing more than most people, since we/they are used to dealing with the otherwise blue coloration of the shadow light.) This sort of scene is extremely transitory. While we can permit ourselves to believe that both the green time of summer and the snowy time of winter are relatively permanent, no such illusion is possible during the brief span of literally a few days when the aspen color comes to these groves – they are different every day, and sometimes you can literally see the color going away as the wind blows down the leaves.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: aspen

Fall Aspen Color, Boulder Mountain

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Aspens and Granite, Autumn

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Aspen Grove, North Bishop Creek

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Aspen Grove, Old Road

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

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