Tag Archives: base

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

Oak and Granite, Autumn

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Oak and Granite, Autumn
A small oak tree in deep shade at the base of a Yosemite Valley granite cliff.

Oak and Granite, Autumn. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A small oak tree in deep shade at the base of a Yosemite Valley granite cliff.

Back in 2012 I took a somewhat later-than-usual trip to photograph fall color in Yosemite Valley. When I think of Sierra Nevada fall color the high country aspens, mostly but not exclusively on the east side of the range, come to mind. Those colors tend to be an early October thing. But colors appear a bit later on the west side of the range, eventually working their way down to the foothills and finally the Central Valley. In Yosemite Valley beautiful colors come from cottonwood, black oak, dogwood and a few other sources, typically arriving in late October and peaking around Halloween.

For reasons that I can no longer recall, this time I ended up in the Valley a couple of weeks later. There was still sufficient color, and it came with the added bonus that light snow had recently fallen. (Unlike summer and winter, which tend to be just what you would expect, the transitional fall and spring seasons often bring surprises.) I took a walk along a section of the north wall of the Valley and photographed this small tree in the shadows at the base of a very tall granite cliff.

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 and Amazon.

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

Cliff and Trees

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Cliff and Trees
Trees and brush at the base of a sandstone cliff along the Virgin River, Zion National Park.

Cliff and Trees. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trees and brush at the base of a sandstone cliff along the Virgin River, Zion National Park.

For an autumn photograph there isn’t a lot of autumn color here! Back in 2012 I made two trips to Southern Utah. The pattern of fall color change in Utah, in my somewhat limited experience, is both different than what I’m used to in California and spread out across many weeks and the many climate zones of the state. The first lesson I learned was very early in October: the aspens in Utah change earlier than those in the Eastern Sierra that I know so well. A second lesson was that the cottonwoods and other trees and bushes in the redrock canyon country change next, and they can be spectacular. The third lesson — illustrated here — is that the colors in Zion Canyon apparently change quite a bit later. I haven’t hit the peak there yet, but I understand that it can be as late as the beginning of November.

This visit was barely two weeks into October, and much of the vegetation in Zion Canyon was still quite green. This photograph comes from a very popular and often crowded area just beyond the road-end at the upper end of the canyon, where many begin their walk/wade up the Virgin River. This is, I think, one of those places that is “iconic for a reason.” This section features a relatively flat and wide canyon bottom, full of trees that can benefit from occasional flooding. But for me the massive canyon walls that follow the river’s course are the main show — the sandstone here is massive and nearly vertical.

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 and Amazon.

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

Canyon Wall

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Canyon Wall
Broken boulders and strata at the base of a slot canyon wall.

Canyon Wall. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Broken boulders and strata at the base of a slot canyon wall.

These canyons are simply full of fascinating details. Unlike much of my familiar Sierra Nevada landscape, where vistas can often go on for many miles, here the size of your world is much smaller. It is constricted to the width of the canyon, the distance to the upper rims (plus some sky), and upstream and downstream to only the next bends. So you are almost forced to focus on smaller details, of which there are many.

Here my attention was drawn to the rocks. I’m no geologist, and I only know enough to speculate about these things. But a close look at the rocks in this scene show material that was created in layers. Near the upper right corner, if you look closely, you can spot a place where there is a striking convergence of angles in the strata. And although this material was laid down in horizontal layers, over time it has been pushed and stretched and lifted until the formerly horizontal now angles up distinctly to the left. There is also an interesting almost vertical fracture between the more solid (and darker) rock on the right, and the lighter color of the broken rocks stacked up on the left.

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 and Amazon.

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

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

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

Juniper, Sandstone Cliff

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Juniper, Sandstone Cliff
An old juniper tree growing at the base of a sandstone cliff, Capitol Reef National Park.

Juniper, Sandstone Cliff. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An old juniper tree growing at the base of a sandstone cliff, Capitol Reef National Park.

As I recall it now, quite a few years later, this tree stands on a rise at the base of a large section of sandstone cliff in a place where a canyon makes a sharp bend. It is not a particularly remote or obscure spot, but the cliff is remarkable in terms of the late-day lighting and the patterns on the surface of the rock. The lighting was special — and challenging! — because the section of the canyon is aligned such that little direct light gets there. This means that much of the light is either from the very blue sky or reflected from very red cliffs, creating some almost otherworldly color effects.

My recollection is also that I found it a little complicated to get the compositions I was looking for here. I remember it as one of those places that is remarkable but which doesn’t necessarily present easy photographs. My archive of raw files supports this — I see a variety of different attempts at the subject, and each of them grappled with issues of juxtaposition and with objects that interfered with the composition. In fact, this version of the scene works because I found a different approach to cropping it that managed to eliminate one of this distractions.

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 and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

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