Tag Archives: boulder

Merced River Boulder, Autumn

Merced River Boulder, Autumn
Merced River Boulder, Autumn

Merced River Boulder, Autumn. Yosemite Valley, California. October 30, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A large boulder is exposed by low autumn water levels in the Merced River

On the final two days of October this year, I did what I often do at this time of year – make a visit to Yosemite Valley to photograph fall colors. As is the case with fall colors in many places in the west, the transition seemed to come a little earlier than usual, and this might have been just a bit too late for some colors (big leaf maples) and perhaps a bit early for others (cottonwoods) but overall a fine time to be in the Valley. (This season was a bit strange in many places in the west, including many where I often photograph. For example, the arrival of the fall aspen color was early, though it did hang on for a good long time.)

This scene along the Merced River says “autumn” in ways that are both obvious to anyone and perhaps less so unless you know the Valley a bit. In the obvious category are the colors of trees along the banks of the river, mostly big leaf maple and oak in this photograph. Other aspects include the very low water level and the quiet flow of the river. In the spring this section of the Merced can be a wild flood of snow melt runoff that rises toward the top of the large boulder – but so late in the season, especially in a very dry year like this one – the river has a much gentler and quieter personality. The light is also different – with the low sun angle there is no direct light at the bottom of the canyon here and none on the section of valley wall visible in the distance. The atmosphere has some of the same feeling that the river has – a bit hazy, little air movement, and at times a softer quality of light.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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.

Bridal Veil Creek

Bridal Veil Creek
Bridal Veil Creek

Bridal Veil Creek. Yosemite Valley, California. May 16, 2008. © Copyright 2008 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Bridal Veil Creek rushes and curves through boulders and forest, Yosemite Valley

This photograph has been sitting quietly in the RAW file archive for five years. I made a note to myself last year to go back and revisit it, and I left the note sitting on my computer desktop… but didn’t get back to it until this week.

This is a fairly classic Yosemite Valley scene, I think, being along the banks of Bridal Veil Creek not far below the famous waterfall with the same name. As I usually do, I had made a spring trip to the Valley to photograph during the period of high water and green foliage and had probably just indulged my tradition of arriving in the Valley and standing in the spray of this waterfall before getting down to the business of making photographs. I considered a color rendition of this photograph, with the subtle colors of the rocks and the water, but decide to go with a more “classic” black and white image – and, yes, I thought about some specific photographs by certain well-known photographers of Valley subjects that also focus on densely complex scenes with lots of details, a type of photographic challenge that I enjoy.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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.

Shoreline, Morning

Shoreline, Morning
Shoreline, Morning

Shoreline, Morning. Kings Canyon National Park, California. September 14, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The shoreline of an unnamed sub-alpine lake in the Kings Canyon National Park High Sierra.

I made this photograph along the shoreline of one of the many small lakes lying within a very short walk from our back-country campsite high in the eastern Sierra near the crest in Kings Canyon National Park. On this morning I headed up canyon with vague ideas about looking for back-light, a favorite condition/subject of mine in the Sierra. I first wandered up one side of the canyon and after finishing my slow amble at a main lake I reversed my track and headed back down the other side of the narrow valley, passing this small lake.

At just about this time the sun cleared the higher ridge to our east and its morning light arrived at the shoreline. The back-light creates a fringe of light in the outer needles of the trees and it illuminates the willows and other smaller plants that were beginning to take on autumn colors. Here the clear water near the edge of the lake was very shallow, and the patterns of the submerged shoreline rocks continues the rocky character of the shoreline. In typical high Sierra fashion, there is rock everywhere, with much of the vegetation working hard to find sustenance in rocky soil between the granite outcroppings and slabs.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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.

Shoreline Meadow, Unnamed Lake

Shoreline Meadow, Unnamed Lake
Shoreline Meadow, Unnamed Lake

Shoreline Meadow, Unnamed Lake. Kings Canyon National Park, California. September 14, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Granite boulders line a small rock-filled meadow near the outlet of an unnamed sub-alpine High Sierra lake, Kings Canyon National Park

This is, to say the least, a complex photograph. I am well aware that it violates all of the “rules,” especially those that suggest that a photograph should have a clear central subject. While that is often fine advice – and I often try to use a single aspect of a larger subject to say something about the larger whole – I think that in some cases it may be fine to use a photograph to portray things that are not quite so simple, and subjects or scenes where the core nature of the thing is, in fact, its overwhelming complexity of detail and form.

This was clearly a very detailed scene, and it embodies an important aspect of the character of these high sierra areas that sit just below timberline in the sub-alpine zone. While there is an order to this environment, it is not a simple order and many components work together in complex ways. I made this photograph at the outlet stream of this nameless lake, located at the 11,000′ level a very short distance from our camp. On this morning the lake’s waters were very still, reflecting the rocky surrounding terrain. (The only simple thing in this scene is the bit of reflected sky at the lower right.) The bit of foreground meadow has taken on the late summer and early fall golden and brown tones, and its surface is interrupted by embedded rocks that become more numerous near the lake’s edge and in its outlet stream. The rest of the landscape is largely one of rock – massive chunks of rock such as the dome-like feature along the far shore and the rounded and rugged shapes of the slopes above, along with fractured and shattered talus slopes composed of rock that has fallen down from the peaks above. Aside from the meadow, the only plant life visible in this landscape consists of scattered trees growing among the rocks and small clusters of alpine willows.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | FacebookGoogle+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.