Tag Archives: aspen

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Brown Aspen Leaves

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Brown Aspen Leaves
Brown Aspen Leaves

Brown Aspen Leaves. Sierra Nevada, California. October 10, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Closeup of a group of brown autumn aspen leaves against a background of yellow leaves.

While I like the brilliantly colored yellow, orange, red, lime green, and golden fall aspen leaves, this color isn’t the only thing that appeals to me about these trees. I enjoy photographing their trunks, too – sometimes when most or all of the leaves are gone. I’m also interested in photographing the brown and sometimes black leaves that seem to appear after a freeze. I found this grove along a slope not far from Mammoth Lakes, and I spent some time wandering up a hillside among the trees in the middle of the day. Although this is not typically the best time for photographing the intense aspen colors, by working under a canopy of leaves and by looking for a few backlit leaves I managed to find a few shots that work. This group of brown leaves ended up being almost colorful because light filtering through the overhead trees and leaves created backlight that was a bit softer and diffused that the “normal” midday light.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Aspens and Peaks Above North Lake, Morning

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Autumn Aspens and Peaks Above North Lake, Morning
Autumn Aspens and Peaks Above North Lake, Morning

Autumn Aspens and Peaks Above North Lake, Morning. Sierra Nevada, California. October 2, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light on colorful autumn aspens below the alpine ridges and peaks at North Lake, Sierra Nevada, California.

This was a particularly beautiful morning at iconic North Lake in the Bishop Creek drainage of the eastern Sierra Nevada. While dozens of photographers lined up tripod-to-tripod at the lower end of the lake, I decided to look elsewhere. After spending some productive time walking the road along the shoreline of the lake and searching out some of the smaller and perhaps less-obvious subjects, I saw the conjunction of this very colorful group of aspens at the bottom of the frame, the morning light on the peaks and broken by the passing clouds, and the carpets of smaller aspen trees ascending the higher slopes of Piute Crags. Rather than doing the classic “lake with mountain shot” that we’ve seen so often from North Lake – and it is a wonderful view! – I thought I’d try to more tightly frame these portions of the scene that got my attention.

I made this photograph with what some might regard as a somewhat unusual landscape lens, the Canon EF 135mm f/2 prime. This is a really wonderful lens that is often used for other subjects such as low light photographs of people and even for portrait work. It is a wonderful lens – in many ways not all that flashy, but just a very reliable and quality performer. I’ve written before that I most often use zoom lenses to shoot landscapes – and there are a number of reasons for this that I won’t go into right now – but I also carry a small number of primes when shooting like this, and if I have the time to work more slowly and the composition works for one of the primes I’ll use it instead.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Conway Summit Aspens, Autumn

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Conway Summit Aspens, Autumn
Conway Summit Aspens, Autumn

Conway Summit Aspens, Autumn. Sierra Nevada, California. October 10, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Layers of colorful autumn aspen groves lead up toward Dunderberg Meadow and Peak above Conway Summit, California.

I often plan my visits to this large aspen grove on the high point of highway 395 just north of Lee Vining for late afternoon, when the rows upon rows of large aspen groves are back-lit by the afternoon sun as it drops towards the crest of the Sierra Nevada near Dunderberg peak. Each grove tends to change color at a slightly different time, and each can take on a different shade ranging from green (in the case of those that change a bit later) to golden and red and orange. This year, in this area, the colors seem to tend more towards gold/yellow and less towards red/orange, but no matte what the shade they light up in this light.

I was extra lucky on this afternoon in that there were clouds. Talk to many Sierra photographers about the weather and you’ll discover that we are not so fond of the “perfect blue sky weather” that so many others love. Yes, it is “pleasant.” No, it is not necessarily visually interesting. It had been that sort of “perfect” weather for the first couple days of this visit to the “east side,” but in the middle of the afternoon on this day puffy clouds began to form over the crest, and their shadows added texture and brought out the shapes of hills and ridges beyond the aspens.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Golden Aspen Grove, Conway Summit

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Golden Aspen Grove, Conway Summit
Golden Aspen Grove, Conway Summit

Golden Aspen Grove, Conway Summit. Sierra Nevada, California. October 10, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Groves of tightly spaced slender aspen trees with golden fall leaves at Conway Summit, California.

Conway Summit is a location well-known to many eastern Sierra photographers, especially those who photograph the autumn aspen color displays. The “Summit” is the high point on the highway 395 just north of the town of Lee Vining, and the aspens grow to the west on the slopes that gradually rise toward Dunderberg Meadow and Peak. When I’m looking for brilliant autumn color here, several factors come into play. First, you have to be there at the right time. This isn’t always easy to predict, and when the color is great in one area of these trees it may have passed or not yet arrived in others. Second, you need to come at the “right” time of day. For me this means, at least at Conway, coming in the mid- to late-afternoon when the groves are lit by backlight coming across the Sierra crest. Third, it helps a lot if you can be there for conditions that are not too ordinary. For example, on the afternoon when I made this and some others photographs that may follow, after a weekend of boring perfect cloud-free weather some puffy clouds began to form above the Sierra crest, and their shadows raced across the area and created patterns of light and dark.

This photograph is also an example of long lens landscape photography. For some reason there are those who think that landscape photography must be done with certain lenses, often those of “normal” to wide focal length ranges. Those certainly have their place, and I use them too. However, I find that longer focal lengths are also indispensable – not just for filling the frame with subjects that you otherwise might not be able to approach, but also to compress foreground and background and to narrow the depth of field, among other reasons. Here I photographed with a 100-400mm telephoto at 250mm.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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