Tag Archives: autumn

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

Burned Forest, Yosemite Valley, Autumn

May 24, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Evening light in a burned section of the forest on the floor of Yosemite Valley.

I’ve been sitting on this photograph for a while, so I figure I’ll post it now. I made it last fall – on Halloween, actually! – during a fall color trip to the Valley. Late on my final evening I finally stopped and walked out across the old terminal moraine that crosses the lower Valley not far upstream from Pohono Bridge. (When you drive into the Valley, the road splits, and before long you’ll see the south end of this feature to your left as you go up a short climb.) I started at the north end and as I walked south looking for a photograph it was a very quite, still, and cold evening.

I finally found a spot where I could go down the lower side of the hill just a bit and find a relatively clear shot through the trees that wasn’t blocked by foliage closer to my position. This area has been burned, and I assume that it is the result of one of the management burns that often occur late in the season. These fires attempt to strengthen the forest by reintroducing the natural process and cycles of fire. The result is interesting charring patterns along the lower portions of the trees, temporary burned undergrowth, and then as the recovery takes place a much more open and airy sort of forest as you see in this photograph.

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

Snow Dusted Oaks, El Capitan Meadow

January 23, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Snow dusts winter oak trees in El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite Valley.

A thick-trunk mature black oak fringed with snow stands in front of a grove of smaller oaks in El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite Valley. The small branches in the upper part of the tree are so thick that they almost create a cloud-like effect in this light, as the low angle winter sun leaves the Valley floor in shadow. A few leaves still remain on the lower branches of the tree.

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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Black Oaks in Winter Fog and Snow

January 22, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Black oak trees with a few remaining autumn leaves in foggy and snow-covered El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite Valley.

I’m always fascinated by the trees in El Capitan Meadow – it doesn’t matter whether it is spring when the meadow is green and the trees are getting new leaves, summer when the meadow is filled with people watching climbers overhead on El Capitan, fall when the grasses turn golden and the leaves change to fall colors, or winter when the meadow may be snow-covered. Sometimes I tell myself that I’m just going to drive past on my way to another destination, but I almost always end up stopping for a least a brief look around – and I frequently end up making a few photographs.

That was the case on this mid-January day, when I drove through on my way to make photographs up on Crane Flat Road. As I passed by the meadow I noticed that low fog was floating above the snow, so I pulled over to look at the scene more closely. I was somewhat surprised to see how many leaves were still hanging on the oak trees so late in the season, and I decided to try to find a photograph that would include them, along with the snow and a bit of the fog and the dark shapes of the tree trunks.

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Text, photographs, and other post content are © copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Autumn Leaves in Snow

January 20, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

A branch and autumn leaves lying on snow, Yosemite Valley, California.

They are “autumn leaves,” but I did photograph them in winter. I was just ending my midday break from photography and sitting in my car in the “day use parking lot” near Yosemite Village, not quite sure what I wanted to shoot next. The previous evening I had the pleasure of having dinner with Michael Frye and Evan Russel from the AAG, and Michael had mentioned that he might shoot in this general area. I had never really thought to photograph there by the parking lot (!), but if it is good enough for Michael I figured it must be good enough for me.

Not quite sure of where I was headed, but thinking initially about photographing trees across the far side of the Merced River, I wandered into the forest near the parking lot. I saw a couple of possibilities and photographed them, but they didn’t quite connect for me. As I walked along in the snow along the banks of the Merced I ended up in a small thicket that was nearly bare of leaves, and near here I spotted this interesting shape of brown leaves and a branch lying in the snow.

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.