Tag Archives: basin

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Mono Lake Shoreline, Evening

October 10, 2017 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

The last light on hills beyond the Mono Lake shoreline

I’ve long been fascinated by the view across this section of the Mono Lake shoreline. It contains a lot of things that I consider essential to the Mono Lake experience — tufa “towers” (though these are more like islands), the shallow shoreline with its curving edges, the larger islands and buttes, the distant mountains in the east, the immense open sky, and the textured and reflecting surface of the water.

In a way, this photograph was sort of (but not exactly!) the result of “killing time” between photographing two other subjects. I had been at a nearby area with colorful aspen trees, and had finished up there — the light was gone sooner than expected when high clouds moved in. At that point I knew that the full moon was going to rise close to sunset, so I decided to find a location along the Mono Lake shoreline to photograph it. I arrived there too early — better than too late! — and had some time to photograph other things as I waited for the moon. I went ahead and set up tripod and camera with some urgency as I noticed to last sunlight on some of those distant hills.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Meadow, Wildflowers, Granite Peaks

October 3, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A view of wildflowers leads across a meadow and lake toward High Sierra peaks

Taking a little break from the Great Basin National Park photographs today, I’m sharing another from our late August and early September backcountry time in the John Muir Wilderness. To recap, we spent essentially nine days base-camped in one spectacular location, from which we could easily explore outwards in all directions — to the meadows surrounding the lake below our camp, further down the drainage where marshy areas were lush and green, a few hundred feet higher where a spectacular meadow full of flowers provided views of alpine peaks, and further up the canyon where we could want cross-country past the timber-line. All in all, it was the kind of location and circumstances that produce a landscape photographer’s paradise.

Near the conclusion of our visit, as happens on any such trip, I was realizing that I still had not gotten to certain obvious subjects. In my case, I hadn’t really spent as much time as I should have in the area right below our camp, where these green meadows wrapped around a small, subalpine lake. So on the first two days of September I focused on exploring this nearby area a bit more. The precise spot in this photograph was one I had first walked through a week before, on the day I completed the (slow!) hike up to this lake. I had walked up this meadow on a faint trail, not really knowing where our camp was and a bit concerned about finding it. Nonetheless, the intense green of the meadow (unusual for so late in the season) and the abundant wildflowers immediately caught my attention. There were many kinds of flowers in the meadow, but here you can see the beautiful paintbrush blossoms, and then the meadow holding the little lake, a bit of forest, and in the distance the high peaks across the canyon from us.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Nevada

Wheeler Glacier and Cirque Headwall

October 2, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

On my recent first-time visit to Nevada’s Great Basin National Park I experienced the challenges and rewards of photographing a brand new (to me!) location. As I have previously noted, I usually avoid doing too much research about a new destination ahead of time, at least beyond what is necessary to successfully get there and back and locate places to stay and eat, along with the most basic known features of the place. (For anyone who hasn’t heard the message already, I’m trying to retain the potential for discovery in new places and to make it more likely that I will form my own orientation to them.) So, what I actually knew about this park in advance of my visit was somewhat limited: it is formed around the Snake Mountains, it is famous for its caves, Wheeler Peak is the second highest point in Nevada, there might be fall color at this time of year, that much of the park is not easily accessible… and there is a glacier!

From this and a few of my other photographs of the high areas of the park you might get the impression that it is largely and alpine place. It isn’t. In fact, the spots that do have that feeling are a small portion of the park and at least partially notable for being exceptions. Yet, once you arrive at such places they become your entire world. (Well, almost your entire world, since views of the surrounding “basin” terrain are rarely far away.) This glacial cirque cuts into the highest ridge, separating the two tallest summits in the park. The view straight into this glacial valley is, indeed, impressively alpine. (As I write this I have a photograph of a Pacific Northwest glacier scene from Mount Shuksan open on my computer, and it shares remarkable parallels with this photograph.) On this visit the effect was enhances by a recent dusting of early autumn snowfall that coats the mountains and the top of the huge rock glacier at the lower edge of the much smaller ice glacier.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Meadow, Peaks, and Storm

September 29, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A storm gathers above an alpine meadow and beyond snow-capped peaks

Not too long ago I posted another photograph made on this same afternoon, from roughly the same place, and featuring very similar subject. In that post I noted that I had made several photographs of this subject on this afternoon, and that I planned to share all of them eventually, perhaps with a bit of commentary concerning how each represented this subject in its own way. The general setting was a large, subalpine meadow surrounded by mountains and forest, and with expansive views across a nearby canyon to the high, rocky country on the far side. A large afternoon thunderstorm was building beyond the high ridge, but meanwhile the sun was bright at my locations. The primary elements of the scene included meadow, mountains, dark clouds, the small pond or tarn, and the nearby trees. There are many ways to “see” a subject photographically, and I tried several variations with this one.

I wanted to include the pond in the portion of the meadow in the photograph, but in this interpretation I decide not to put it in the center of the frame, but instead to have it off to the side, perhaps giving it a bit less presence in the scene. I wanted to include the small foreground trees to increase the sense of depth in the image and to ensure that there wasn’t empty space in the foreground. I framed the mountains this way so that I could place the dark peak in the middle, and envelop it in the higher peaks stretching back behind it. A remaining question was about how much sky in include. In another interpretation I included a lot of sky, placing the horizon near the center of the frame. Here I did what I more typically do, placing the horizon very high and including only a small strip of sky at the top. This draws attention to the landscape itself, and I was still able to include enough sky to make the dark thunder-storm clouds visible.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: basin

Mono Lake Shoreline, Evening

Meadow, Wildflowers, Granite Peaks

Wheeler Glacier and Cirque Headwall

Meadow, Peaks, and Storm

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