Tag Archives: boulder

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Lenticular Clouds, Alpenglow Reflections

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Lenticular Clouds, Alpenglow Reflections
“Lenticular Clouds, Alpenglow Reflections” — Two lenticular clouds in the alpenglow above the Sierra Nevada crest, Yosemite National Park.

This photograph comes from her the end of the spectacular afternoon and evening that I’ve been posting about recently. To quickly recap, I saw lenticular clouds forming over the crest earlier in the day, headed to this spot that I had scoped out previously, then photographed all the way from pre-golden hour through sunset and on into the early dusk. This photograph was made just after sunset, when the pink light was still coloring the sky and the landscape but the blue of evening was gradually taking over.

If you head out into the landscape often to photograph, you will experience a lot of fine but unremarkable days. With care, you can make good photographs in those conditions. You’ll also experience a few “meh” days when nothing happens. (Deny all you want, but you’ve experience it!) But it seems like this earns you an occasional luminous miracle, when everything comes together and amazement ensues. If there is a downside to this, it might be having to explain to people that, “yes, this really happened!” That’s a small price to pay.

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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. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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

Streamside Cottonwood Trees

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Streamsiode Cottonwood Trees
Streamside cottonwood trees along the Virgin River begin to change to autumn colors.

Streamside Cottonwood Trees. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Streamside cottonwood trees along the Virgin River begin to change to autumn colors.

This photograph comes from a very busy place in Zion National Park, along the trail to one of the more popular destinations in Zion Canyon. Fortunately, as is almost always the case in well-known national parks, you can usually step even a little ways off the main trails and put some distance between yourself and the hordes. That’s more or less what I did here — I just walked a little ways away from the main hiking thoroughfare to where the trees were overhanging the river a bit. (However, a warning: When there are so many people around, sometimes a critical mass of them may see you making photographs and decide to follow. Unfortunately, that happened here to some extent. On some occasions I’ve been known to go to some lengths to obscure my visits to such places!)

Once again, I was really mostly attracted by the reflected canyon light — that special light that reflects from sunlit red rock walls and then gently fills in shadows with softly-directional, warm light. (One challenge: if there is a breeze it can be hard to deal with the motion of the leaves in this low light.) I chose the portrait orientation for this photograph so that I could include a bit of the stream and the boulder along with a bit of the canyon wall above and beyond the trees.

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.

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

Boulder-Covered Ridge and Trees, Sunset

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Boulder-Covered Ridge and Trees, Sunset
Gentle sunset light on wilderness trees on a boulder-covered ridge, Yosemite National Park.

Boulder-Covered Ridge and Trees, Sunset. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Gentle sunset light on wilderness trees on a boulder-covered ridge, Yosemite National Park.

You have already seen these trees if you have been following along here in recent weeks. To quickly recap, on this evening in the Yosemite backcountry wilderness I went for a long looping walk out beyond the lake where we were camped. I climbed a ridge beyond the opposite shoreline, and followed its spine over a rounded granite dome before descending back to ward the lake on the other side. It was late in the season, and wildfire smoke hovered far to the west between my location and the setting sun. As the sun dropped toward the horizon its light came through the smoky sky and turned the landscape an intense red-orange color.

I stopped and quickly began to photograph, knowing that these lighting conditions would be very brief. When this happens the process of photography is anything but a slow and considered process. Instead my photography instincts kick in and I tend to work fairly quickly, hoping to get something before the ephemeral light is gone. Rather than perfecting a single “perfect” composition, I may try several different approaches in quick succession, working out the details by making photographs and adjusting. A photograph I shared recently focused on this same scene but it used a wider angle. Here I began to eliminate distractions from the larger landscape by tightening the composition.

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.

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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: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Rocky Terrain, Subalpine Lake

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Rocky Terrain, Subalpine Lake
Rocky terrain and its reflection along the shoreline of a backcountry subalpine lake, Kings Canyon National Park.

Rocky Terrain, Subalpine Lake. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Rocky terrain and its reflection along the shoreline of a backcountry subalpine lake, Kings Canyon National Park.

As I do from time to time, recently I was reminiscing about the Before Times when I headed into the Sierra backcountry for a week or more every summer with a wonderful group of fellow photographers — among whom are several who have been doing these trips for two decades. (Although I’ve visited the Sierra backcountry for what I vaguely refer to as “decades,” I only began to join this group in 2008.) All of us miss these trips, especially what would have been the one celebrating the second decade of the work, but it turns out that there are still discoveries to be made among the photographs we brought back.

On this trip we visited a fairly remote location in the Sequoia-Kings Canyon backcountry, one that took us a couple of days to get to. Once there we spent close to a week photographing the heck out of the place and surrounding wilderness, a high elevation place full of lakes and rocky terrain. We mixed photograph in our immediate “backyard” (sometimes only steps from out tents) with somewhat longer explorations. This photograph comes from a lake rather close to our camp. My weak knowledge of Sierra geology suggests to me that this monumental chunk of rock was probably overrun and sculpted by glaciers in the past.

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.

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