Tag Archives: black and white

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

Recovering Forest

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Recovering Forest
A recenty-burned Yosemite forest shows signs of regeneration.

Recovering Forest. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A recenty-burned Yosemite forest shows signs of regeneration.

Wildfires have recently been on our minds here on the west coast. In the San Francisco Bay Area the bad fires began about a month ago when an unusual and very active series of electrical storms set off dozens of fires and shrouded the area in smoke. Shortly after that our extremely dry summer and unusually hot August temperatures set off huge fires from California to Oregon, historic in size and intensity. (As of this date one of these fires has set a record for the largest fire ever in California, doubling the size of the previous record fire.) We’ve had a month of “spare the air” days now.

September and October are traditionally the fire season here, though not on the scale that we are experiencing this year. It is a time of hazy skies and, if you go to the mountains, active fires. Over the years we’ve moved from regarding fire as something to be avoided to thinking of it as something to be managed — it is a natural component of healthy wildlands. I’ve changed my attitude as well, at least when it comes to normal, modest fires, and I’ve been trying to see the beauty in burned landscapes. In early September I had planned a short Yosemite backpack trip, but (ironic!) I had to back out at the last minute due to smoke. I was on my way home when I stopped at this location, a place where I stop and photograph every year, especially when dogwoods bloom. Last season a fire burned over this spot and, blackening many of the largest trees and destroying undergrowth. But a few trees survived and they are now thriving.

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

Disrupted Strata

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Disrupted Strata
The fractured and bent layers of a fractured boulder in a Utah slot canyon.

Disrupted Strata. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The fractured and bent layers of a fractured boulder in a Utah slot canyon.

This jumble of rocks sits in a Southern Utah canyon, piled on debris and the lower face of a cliff that runs along the banks of a small creek. The bottoms of such canyons are, for obvious reasons, places full of all sorts of debris that either falls from the surrounding cliffs or is washed down the canyon in periodic floods. A good part of the challenge of making progress through such terrain involves contending with this detritus.

As is so often the case in these landscapes, the initial appearance of features may mislead the viewer about their history. Rocks, of course, seem quite solid and immutable. But this little vignette of almost nothing but rock actually shows more about how much it changes than about its stability. This rock was formed in layers laid down by water a long, long time ago. Those layers were compressed, folded, upended and broken over time. Here we see a snapshot of that process. Lying atop a smoother section of the cliff, this deteriorating boulder’s layers are made apparent as they break apart and realign.

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

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Shoreline, Mono Lake

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Shoreline, Mono Lake
A hazy summer morning along the shareline of Mono Lake.

Shoreline, Mono Lake. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A hazy summer morning along the shareline of Mono Lake.

Perhaps you see a few of my photographs and read the accompanying text… in which case you may already know my Mono Lake story: I’m attracted to the immense space and profound quite and stillness of the place, more so than specific features such as tufa towers. Perhaps because I’ve been to those popular features many times, I now tend to poke around in somewhat more obscure places or try to see other aspects of the lake and its surrounding basin.

I made this photograph on a clear sky day when haze — perhaps from wildfires? — was obscuring distant features on the far side of Mono Basin. With the light come from above and beyond those far ranges the atmosphere was luminous and seemed to almost glow. Winds were creating patterns on the surface of the lake. I included some of the near shore, too, perhaps to more clearly show the immense size of the lake.

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: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Table and Window

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Table and Window
A table in a room at the Lan Su Chinese Garden, Portland, Oregon.

Table and Window. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A table in a room at the Lan Su Chinese Garden, Portland, Oregon.

Considering its location, jammed into an urban block in Portland, this garden is a remarkably quiet and serene place. In fact, my visit convinced me that this feeling is contagious, altering the attitudes and behavior of visitors who come through the gates from that urban environment.

We had a few afternoon hours to enjoy the place some years back on a visit to Portland, a visit on which we went to many of the city’s lovely gardens. This photograph looks into a small room, across a game table, through a window, and out into the garden.

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.