Tag Archives: autumn

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

September Rain

December 6, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

September rain falls on a Yosemite backcountry lake

Autumn in the Sierra is time of wonderful transitions — it is my favorite time of year to be there. For the most part the weather is still beautiful, with warm days and pleasantly chilly evenings and early mornings. The light is special — it is hard to put my finger on the precise quality, but somehow it feels warmer and softer than in the summer. Meadows turn golden brown and many plants take on their autumn colors. It feels like everything is slowing.

There can also be storms. These are not the brief afternoon thunderstorms of summer. They are the first harbingers of winter — the large Pacific weather fronts that begin to push in and which will eventually bring winter snow. We had such a storm — though it was a gentle one — on our visit, and it rained off and on for the final two days of our stay. I made this photograph along the shoreline of “our” lake, with fall colors in the foreground and a passing shower in front of the distant peak.

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

Autumn Shoreline

December 4, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn colors arrive along the shoreline of an Eastern Sierra lake

This photograph represents a bit of a step back from the more intense Sierra Nevada colors of some of my other fall color photographs. Here many of the colors are muted, and the light is soft. The upper trees have already lost their leaves — early, as a result of the drought — and the foreground plants lining the lakeside marsh have largely gone dormant. A few conifers and some sagebrush appear around the edges of the frame.

This lake in the Eastern Sierra is the location of some spectacular fall color, too. In fact, this photograph intentionally looks away from some peak colors that were occurring nearby on this morning. After photographing so much intense color for several weeks, I think I was enjoying the muted quality of autumn storm light as it began to rain and eventually rain on this beautiful and quiet October morning.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspens, Early Autumn Snow

November 29, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Snow from an early autumn storm dusts the high peaks above Eastern Sierra aspen trees

I made this photograph on an early autumn morning, on a day with conditions that were either difficult or special, depending on your point of view. After several days of photographing aspen color in the Eastern Sierra, this was my final morning of this particular trip. The weather had mostly been “nice” — perhaps a bit unusually so for this time of year, but in line with the pattern of California drought that was now in its fourth year. But on my last night of this trip an early fall storm blew in, and overnight it snowed lightly on my camp.

Looking at this as an opportunity, I was up early in the morning. I headed up higher into the mountains where I knew there would be plenty of the aspen color that I had photographed during the past few days, but now altered in appearance by this “interesting” weather. It was cold enough that light snow was sticking on the higher peaks, and at my elevation it was that raw kind of weather that is windy and just cold enough to “try to snow.” The overcast softened the light, bringing more illumination to shadows and intensifying the autumn colors.

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

Autumn Ferns, Tree, and Gully

November 26, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Boulders, autumn ferns and a small tree line a Yosemite back country granite gully

For me, intimate scenes like this one define the Sierra Nevada experience at least as much as do alpine ridges and grand scenery. While those subjects are highlights, the feeling of smooth granite, stepping across half-buried rocks and through grasses, finding my way up or down a gully are the core experiences of the place. I wonder if I’m the only person who, when he starts thinking about the sensor experience of the Sierra, mostly recalls these things, along with the sound of gravel beneath boots, echoing off of the rock walls, water flowing in creeks, wind in trees and always the light.

This little spot is probably not one that would get the attention of too many people, unless perhaps they spent a week camped a few minutes from such a gully, crossed it daily on travels around a lake, and often paused to look up and eventually decided to explore a bit. A first glance told me that there was a gully. Another look and I began to see the colors of the rocks and their curve. Returning a few more times I noticed the little spruce tree and the ferns growing among the rocks. And after a week this spot become one more piece of the Sierra as I know it.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: autumn

September Rain

Autumn Shoreline

Aspens, Early Autumn Snow

Autumn Ferns, Tree, and Gully

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