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

High Country, Dawn

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High Country, Dawn
Just before sunrise, soft light and colorful sky above Yosemite high-country peaks, forest, and meadow.

High Country, Dawn. Yosemite National Park, California. July 27 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Just before sunrise, soft light and colorful sky above Yosemite high-country peaks, forest, and meadow.

Sometimes landscape and nature photographers enjoy complaining about certain things required to be in the right places at the right times in order to make photographs of their intended subjects. So, here is a story. The previous day I had been out photographing until the light was gone, and then had to travel back to my dark camp. By the time I finished camp business, it was quite late, and by the time I got to sleep it was less-than-a-full-night’s-sleep until the time I would have to get up. But get up I did, well before dawn. I dressed in the cold and darkness, soon heading out with no coffee or breakfast while the sky was still dark. Before long I began to find potential subjects, even though the light was not yet quite “there.”

Now, behind that story (complaining? false heroism?) is another truth: I feel fortunate to be able to do this! As I ventured out, I found myself almost entirely alone. Even though I was driving on a very popular high country road, I saw almost no one else. Before long the bluish earth shadow line began to drop toward the horizon behind these peaks, and I stopped at a little meadow I know well. Although it is next to the roadway, it was almost completely silent and still, and the meadow plants were covered with dew. I photographed as this brief show of sky color began to fade, and as I finished I thought about the number of people who only come to these places in the middle of the day, and who therefore miss the color and the quiet and the solitude. Is it worth getting out of my sleeping bag in the predawn darkness? Yes!

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: Sierra Nevada

Early Season Alpine Terrain

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Early Season Alpine Terrain
A lakeside meadow is begins its short summer period of growth as snowpack melts along the Sierra Nevada crest

Early Season Alpine Terrain. July 26, 2017. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A lakeside meadow begins its short summer period of growth as snowpack melts along the Sierra Nevada crest

I think I can use this photograph to tell a story or two. In late July of this much wetter than normal year, I visited the Sierra in the area roughly between Tuolumne Meadows and Lundy Canyon over a period of four days. After five years of California drought, the balance tipped the opposite direction this past winter, and did so with a vengeance. Many areas got as much a twice the normal amount of precipitation this season. Many areas opened late, lots of facilities were damaged, and a number of places (such as Tuolumne Meadows campground) were still not open when I visited. But I managed to find a high elevation campsite just outside the park, and I decided to mix a little hiking with my photography.

This lake is perhaps a couple of miles from a trailhead that offers two relatively easy ways to get there. I took a familiar one along a north-facing slope above the shoreline of a big lake, because it is shorter than the alternative and in some ways easier. Or so I thought. It turned out that the snow from this big winter is still thick in areas above 10,000′ of elevation — like this one — and more than half of my little hike turned out to be on snow. There was also water everywhere — waterfalls and cascades visible high up on mountain slopes, streams dashing madly down below, flooded meadows, and more. My second challenge turned out to be this water — and I finally came up against a creek that I wasn’t willing to try crossing while hiking solo — a bit too dangerous. The lake in this photograph lies in a subalpine basin below peaks on the Sierra crest. The snow had just (for the most part) melted out of this sodden meadow near the lake’s outlet stream, so I decided to make a few photographs that included the large blocks of granite standing in the meadow along with the very tall alpine ridge in the background.

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Shoreline, First Morning Light

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Shoreline, First Morning Light
First morning light comes to the forested shoreline of a Sierra Nevada backcountry lake

Shoreline, First Morning Light. Yosemite National Park, California. September 5, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

First morning light comes to the forested shoreline of a Sierra Nevada backcountry lake

Near the end of the summer of 2014 I ventured into the Yosemite backcountry with a group of friends and photographers for a week of landscape photography work, first at a somewhat isolated lake and then near a more popular location. Although I’ve been a backpacker for years, accustomed to slogging along with a big backpack carrying all of my own gear, on this trip we were supported by pack train. In fact, we had stupendous support. All of our non-photographic gear was packed in to the first location. A few days later a pack train returned and moved our gear to the next location. (Meanwhile we hiked a cross-country route to get there, following a trajectory that stock could not use.) And finally at the end of the trip the packers came back again and schlepped our gear back out to civilization. I think I could get used to this — though I still very much enjoy the quiet and slow pace of self-contained backpacking.

We were at the lake for three or four days, long enough go venture beyond the obvious things that one sees when first arriving at a place. We had time to return to subjects and reconsider them a few days later, possibly in different light or at a different time of day. We were also able to push out boundaries outward a bit from the lake itself, climbing a few of the nearby promontories. And, always, we had the luxury of rolling out of sleeping bags before dawn, walking a few steps to the lakeshore, and beginning the day’s work. This photograph was made not more than five minutes from camp as the first light began to work down to lake level.

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: Central California, Photographs: Nature

From the High Peaks

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From the High Peaks
Central California spring terrain viewed from the High Peaks Trail at Pinnacles National Park

From the High Peaks. Pinnacles National Park, California. March, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Central California spring terrain viewed from the High Peaks Trail at Pinnacles National Park

When I was a lot younger I used to visit what was then Pinnacles National Monument, a quiet little park well south of the San Francisco Bay Area, known for its remarkable rock formations, for being too hot to visit in the summer, for spectacular spring wildflowers, and as a place for rock climbers. For various reasons the place had sort of slipped out of my consciousness, and I had not been back there in the past thirty years or so. A few years ago I began to think that I should return and begin to photograph the place, especially now that it has been promoted to national park status, and it was this month that I finally returned for the first time.

Many things were largely as I remember them, though there have been changes – to the park and to my recall! I arrived at the west side trailhead (where there was a campground when I last visited — but no more) and decided to begin the renewal of my relationship with the park by doing the High Peaks Trail. The photograph was made near the high point of this trail. The hike begins with a 1500 climb from the parking area to a high ridge, followed by a traverse through ridge top terrain of giant towers and sheer drop-offs. I chose to take the “steep and exposed” route, and was surprised that I had forgotten just how steep and exposed it really is. There were some spots where getting past while carrying my large and heavy camera pack was a bit tricky!

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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