Tag Archives: brown

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

Black Oak, Meadow, Autumn

November 8, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A backlit black oak tree with autumn foliage stands in a meadow below Sentinel Rocks, Yosemite Valley

This black oak, like so many in Yosemite Valley, stands in a large grassy meadow. Although the autumn foliage of these trees may seem less spectacularly colorful than that of the big leaf maples and the cottonwoods, the black oak has a more subtle beauty in the fall. But when lit from behind, early or late in the day when the sun is low, the color of black oak leaves can be surprisingly intense. Off all the fall colors in the Valley, in some ways the combination of that of these oaks and the grasses of the meadows where they are found seems to most strongly speak of fall to me.

This single tree is in a meadow filled with black oaks. I would not be surprised to find that there are 100 of them here. On this afternoon I had gone to the meadow to photograph something different, a group of small cottonwood trees growing near the bank of the Merced River. Finishing that project, I was about to start back toward my car when I noticed that a short-lived beam of direct sun was coming down from an opening in the upper cliff walls and spotlighting this tree. Naturally, I changed my plans, took a little detour, and spent a few minutes with this tree.

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

Cottonwood Leaves, Autumn

November 5, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Leaves, wet from morning frost, litter the ground near the banks of the Merced River

During my recent visit to Yosemite Valley to photograph autumn subjects, I kept seeing a particular stand of very small cottonwood trees growing densely close together near the Merced River. They were in a spot with somewhat tricky lighting, and the first few times I saw them the light was not ideal, so I filed the subject away mentally and figured I would come back and shoot them in the right light. Eventually, I returned, and although the light was still not ideal for the photograph I had in mind – and did not make yet on this trip – I decided to walk out to the trees and take a look and perhaps make a few close-up photographs.

None of the trees are taller than perhaps fifteen feet and some are only a couple of feet tall, but they grow together densely. (My hunch is that in some future decade when they mature only a few of them will survive.) I began by photographing groups of their vertical trunks from outside the grove, looking for interesting relationships among the forms of their trunks and for a few spots where a solitary leaf was still stuck in the branches of a tree. Then I walked into the grove, looking at the trees themselves and at the ground below, which was some combination of dew-soaked and flattened grass mixed with the leave that had fallen from the trees.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Sheep, Morning Fog

November 1, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of sheep grazes under morning fog in an eastern Sierra Nevada meadow

There is a long tradition of grazing sheep (and cattle) in parts of the Sierra Nevada. Many years ago they were taken to the high country in the summer season – a practice that Muir railed against, describing their effect on the vegetation of the high Sierra as that of “hoofed locusts.” Today we don’t see grazing in the high country anymore since these areas are now protected as wilderness, outside or inside national parks in many cases. But the tradition continues in the lower country along the eastern side of the range.

For many years I have seen the occasional flock of sheep on the east side, sometimes close to the mountains (as is the case here) and more often a bit further out into the semi-desert highlands. Often there will be a shepherd standing guard and perhaps a sheep dog or two. (One flock we saw this time also contained, for reasons that I can’t quite understand, a single black mule.) Sometimes you will see the small trailer nearby where the shepherd lives. The flock in this photograph was one of two very large groups in close proximity to one another in an area south of Mammoth Lakes and right alongside highway 395. I had driven here to try to photograph the morning fog that was drifting from Crowley Lake, and we got there just as it was clearing from this spot, with light beams shining through the breaks in the cloud.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Shoreline, Morning

October 24, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

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 Photography

Tag Archives: brown

Black Oak, Meadow, Autumn

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Cottonwood Leaves, Autumn

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Sheep, Morning Fog

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Shoreline, Morning

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

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