Tag Archives: brown

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.

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

Dana Meadow, Kuna Crest

October 5, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dry summer grasses in Dana Meadow near Tioga Pass, forest leading to Kuna Crest

I think of this photograph as being, in some ways, very unremarkable. In a few other ways there are some things that are at least a bit unusual about it, though this probably isn’t obvious. The scene is one that is familiar to anyone who has driven over Tioga Pass between the eastern Sierra and Yosemite National Park and west side destinations. The Yosemite Sierra along this route is a very diverse place, but the large sub-alpine meadows surrounded by forest and higher peaks is very common and characteristic of the area. Sierra visitors are also probably familiar with the annual seasonal transition from lush, green meadows to drier, brown meadows.

So what is a bit unusual about this scene? For one thing, I shot it during more or less the midday hours. This is not typically when I photograph scenes like this one, but this daytime view is probably the sort of thing that we see most often when we are actually there in the range. The color of the meadow grass is also a bit unusual – not that this coloration occurs, but that it happened so early in the season this year. The almost complete absence of green in the meadow is more characteristic of a time several weeks later than this early August date, when typically we might see a combination of dry and lush. But this year has been anything but a typical one in the Sierra and in much of California. Last winter was extremely dry, and there was barely any precipitation after the new year started – and this was the second drought year in a row. The conditions in the Sierra, as seen here, are not unprecedented, but they are very unusual.

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

Dusk, Earth-Shadow, Oaks and Grass

August 29, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The earth’s dusk earth shadow rises behind the folds of an oak and grass-covered Sierra Nevada foothill ridge on a late-summer evening

We had been in Mariposa, along the road heading towards Yosemite Valley, to meet up with friends and do various other fun things. As is often the case, at one point the conversation turned toward the photographic possibilities for later in the day. As the horrendous “Rim” fire was burning a few ridges over along the boundaries of the park, one thought was to find a high viewpoint and try to photograph the huge smoke clouds and the light from the flames during the dusk hours. A suggestion was offered by a person who knows the area concerning a gravel back-road to the top of an area ridge from which a good view might be obtained, so we decided to give that a try. It was a beautiful early evening – no smoke here – as we drove through oak and grass-covered hills below Mariposa to pick up this route and then ascended toward the ridge to turn off on the gravel road. From the junction we could see columns of smoke from burning forest to our north, but there was also a pretty clear “No Trespassing” sign posted along the road… so we decided that we should double-check our directions before risking a citation, and we headed back down the mountain.

The alternative plan had been to simply photograph the beautiful foothills themselves as the day came to an end. In this area there are many beautiful valleys of rolling hills covered with dry grassland and oak forests that sometimes thin to individual trees. We headed along a little back road and soon arrived at our main route shortly before the last sunlight was about to fade. Driving as we looked, we finally stopped at a turnout right after the sun had dropped below the horizon, where we could see the boundary between the last pink color in the sky and the rising blue line of the earth’s shadow. I used a long lens to make a small number of exposures shooting across the hillside patterns towards an oak-topped ridge with the dusk sky beyond.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Column, Wall, and Dying Tree

August 20, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

The brown branches of a dying tree stand against a stone wall and column, Pittock Mansion, Portland, Oregon

This might be about as unrepresentative a photograph of the Pittock Mansion as one could make. ;-) Pittock Mansion is a historic location in the hills above Portland, Oregon. If I recall the story correctly, it was built by an early leading citizen of the area who ran the newspaper (The Oregonian?) and may have had interested in the lumber business. The expansive mansion was built on a hillside above the city, with views of three of the major volcanos of northern Oregon, and on grounds that included beautiful and lush gardens. The mansion itself is large and luxurious and was, for its day, very modern.

So I went and photographed a dead tree against a stone wall. What can I say? This section of wall combines a blocky section of the wall with a cylindrical column. Not surprisingly for the Pacific Northwest, moss grows on the rock, giving it the slight green tint. I think the tree is dying – at least it looks that way – and its odd color caught my attention.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: brown

Shoreline, Morning

Dana Meadow, Kuna Crest

Dusk, Earth-Shadow, Oaks and Grass

Column, Wall, and Dying Tree

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