Tag Archives: backcountry

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

Shoreline Trees, Morning Light

Image Leave a comment
Shoreline Trees, Morning Light
Morning light on shoreline trees at a backcountry Yosemite National Park lake.

Shoreline Trees, Morning Light. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light on shoreline trees at a backcountry Yosemite National Park lake.

Our group spent the better part of a week camped near this northern Yosemite Lake, exploring it, its two companion lakes, and the surrounding high country. We camped in the forest a ways back from this lake, but it was only a minute away and thus became a daily subject for photography, especially in the morning when the light come over the ridges to our east and backlight the shoreline trees.

This subject, in this light, presented a pair of interesting challenges of the sort that you only learn to appreciate after doing landscape photography in such places. The first came from shooting toward the light from the edge of the lake. Photographers know the issues with flare that can result from light hitting the lens directly — but multiply that times two when the light comes from above and from the reflections from the lake’s surface. The gyrations necessary to block both often prove interesting. The second challenge was… mosquitos! Not just that the fiends, biting little devils annoyed us constantly, but also that their blurry forms tend to appear in photographs when viewed closely. You don’t know the meaning of fun until you’ve cloned a few hundred of them out of a photograph!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

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

Dissipating Sierra Storm, Evening

Image Leave a comment
Dissipating Sierra Storm, Evening
Storm clouds dissipate in evening light, northern Yosemite backcountry.

Dissipating Sierra Storm, Evening. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Storm clouds dissipate in evening light, northern Yosemite backcountry.

This photograph is not just a picture — it evokes a whole series of pleasant associations going back decades. The location is a backcountry spot in northern Yosemite National Park that I visited a decade ago with a group of friends and photographers. I had walked into the backcountry to meet them on my own for a few years, and I did the same thing this time… but something changed. I was self-contained, carrying everything on my back, as I had done for decades, but they were supported by pack train. After our first night at a midway point on the trek to this spot, one of the group members said, “You know, Dan, we could see if there is room for your pack on one of the mules.” Stubborn as a mule myself, I declined. My friend persisted, “Maybe we could put part of your load on a mule.” I surrendered, turning over my canister of food. (After this I participated fully in these trips — yes, relying on mules, too.)

We ended up camped near the lake seen in this photograph. The group had developed loose rituals — up very early to photograph, usually alone, then back to camp for midday tasks and camaraderie. Late in the day we dispersed again into the surrounding terrain to photograph until dark. On this afternoon I did something that I always love in the Sierra — I headed off on my own to investigate some off-trail terrain. Eventually I found my way up some granite slabs and ledges to top out at the base of a high valley filled with talus. I made a few photographs and then started to work my way back down, pausing at this spot just before sunset and setting up to photograph dissipating clouds beyond distant peaks before descending in the gathering darkness to rejoin my friends in camp.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

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

Cathedral Peak, Autumn Sunset

Image Leave a comment
Cathedral Peak, Autumn Sunset
Cathedral Peak in early autumn sunset light.

Cathedral Peak, Autumn Sunset. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Cathedral Peak in early autumn sunset light.

Everyone needs a photograph of Cathedral Peak at sunset, right? Although I’ve been to this place quite a few times — in a wide range of circumstances — I haven’t photographed the peak all that much. Perhaps it is because I haven’t often climbed up these slopes above the lake at this time of day. But on this visit some years ago, I did find myself in the right spot at the right time as a result of doing a bit of late-afternoon exploration.

The peak presents lots of opportunities for beautiful late-day light essentially at the end of the Cathedral range, leaving lower terrain open to the west and allowing the evening sun to shine directly on the mountain. Because the bowl is higher than surrounding terrain, gaining a it of elevation reveals lots of distant peaks, too, and the lake can reflect the mountain’s colors. Because this visit was late in the season — just a few days before the end of September — the meadows are golden-brown, too.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

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

Trees, Ledge, Fractured Rock

Image Leave a comment
Trees, Ledge, Fractured Rock
Two trees grow tenaciously on a narrow ledge above a fractured cliff face.

Trees, Ledge, Fractured Rock. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two trees grow tenaciously on a narrow ledge above a fractured cliff face.

Nearly a decade ago I joined a group of friends and photographers at a Yosemite backcountry location. I was only there a few days, but they stayed for over a week — including a bout of incredibly cold early autumn weather than I managed to miss. (Although I wan’t there to experience it, I have heard the stories many times on subsequent backcountry trips with these folks.)

We were camped in a scenic location within in walking distance of a remarkable range things to see and photograph — lakes, meadows, ridges, granite slabs and ones, forest, and more. But I made this photograph only a few feet from camp, where low, fractured cliffs began to climb near the edge fo the lake and meadows. Like anyone who spends time there, I’ve long been fascinated by the relationship between Sierra trees and rock. Some trees, especially those growing in the rock, manage to eke our a life in little more than cracks in the granite and, in doing so, they sometimes seem closer to rock than to living things.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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