Tag Archives: california

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: White Mountains

Inyo Sunrise

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Inyo Sunrise
Looking south from the White Mountains toward the Inyo Range at sunrise.

Inyo Sunrise. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Looking south from the White Mountains toward the Inyo Range at sunrise.

On my aspen photography trip to the Eastern Sierra during week three of October I took one day off from photographing the autumn leaves and headed east into the White Mountains to visit the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. It had been a few years since my last visit, and it seemed like time. I left the town of Bishop in predawn darkness, planning to be at an overlook of the High Sierra at dawn. Dawn on the Sierra is always impressive, though the photographic challenges on this morning were many. But just at sunrise I looked back to the Southeast, across the Inyo Range and all the way to the peaks of Death Valley, to see an impressive sequence of silhouetted peaks..

From here I continued on to the higher reaches of the White Mountains, an alpine moonscape of round and very high peaks, covered in many places by the remarkable bristlecone pine forest. These trees survive in one of the most challenging environments in California, at high elevations in these dry and barren mountains. At this late-season date there was hardly anyone else there. I saw a couple of cars at the (closed) visitor center, and I was entirely alone for an hour or so at the highest, most-distant grove of 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: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Trunks, Fallen Leaves

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Aspen Trunks, Fallen Leaves
Fall leaves cover the ground inside a grove of small Eastern Sierra aspen trees.

Aspen Trunks, Fallen Leaves. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Fall leaves cover the ground inside a grove of small Eastern Sierra aspen trees.

This stand of aspens was at the edge of a larger and wildly colorful grove that descended to a nearby creek and then a good distance up the slopes on the far side of the canyon. Those other trees are the main attraction here, but as I looked down toward these trees it seemed like they provided an opportunity to enter the grove and photograph close to the trunks. Here many of the leaves had already fallen, which might usually let some much light into the grove that it would be hard to photograph. But evening shadows had reached this point, muting highlights and opening up the shadows.

Photographing this subject presents some challenges. For one, I often start in such places thinking it should be easy to find a composition among such beautiful tree trunks — but then most of the potential compositions seem to include some sort of obstruction. Also, in order to get a lot of the trunks in the frame I must work very close the trees using a very wide angle lens, so small changes of camera position seem to have big effects! Finally there is the matter of the color of the light. If you were there in this grove you would notice white trunks and warm-colored yellow leaves. However, objectively speaking, the light in this shadowed area is quite blue, being illuminated by the sky itself. So I have a decision to make. Is it better to go with that blue, which looks quite a bit different from what I saw at the time? Or should I alter the coloration to reflect my memory. I’ve done both, but in this photograph I went with the latter option.

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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Photographs: Nature

An Ancient One

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An Ancient One
“An Ancient One” — An ancient bristelcone pine standing alone on a rocky ridge, White Mountains.

During my recent trip to photograph Eastern Sierra fall color I spent one day high in the White Mountains. This range (one of multiple “White Mountains” ranges in the USA!) lies to the east of the central Sierra Nevada, running south from roughly Boundary Peak, the tallest in Nevada, to Westgard Pass, which separates the range, somewhat arbitrarily, from the Inyo Mountains. It is a high, remote, dry, and largely unvisited range in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada. Although it rises as high as the Sierra, it lacks that range’s rugged, sculpted peaks — much of its high country is more of a rounded moonscape. It is one of the prime locations for bristlecone pines.

The bristlecone pines are remarkable trees. They are among the very oldest living things — some may be close to 5000 years old. Surprisingly perhaps, the oldest grow in some of the most rugged and least hospitable places. It seems that the struggle strengthens them, and these “old ones” are characterized by resistance to exposure and the appearance of being more dead than alive — the trees sacrifice the majority of their branches in order to sustain a few remaining living portions. Their remarkable character and great age always cause me to slow down and ponder.

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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: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Fall Color, Bare Aspens

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Fall Color, Bare Aspens
Nearly bare aspen trees in the center of a scene of Eastern Sierra autumn color.

Fall Color, Bare Aspens. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Nearly bare aspen trees in the center of a scene of Eastern Sierra autumn color.

This photograph, made when this grove had passed its prime, gets us closer to the end of this year’s autumn transition in the Sierra, when some trees here are almost bare. While writing about this photograph I pondered my favorite time of aspen season. Is it the first explosion of color early each fall? Is it the peak time when the greatest number of leaves are fully transitioned? Or is it this time, when some colorful leaves remain but it is more and more obvious that winter is almost here? Honestly, it is hard to pick one over the other, but I do love how the trunks and branches are gradually revealed as the leaves fall..

While this photograph focuses on trees near the end of the color transition, nearby and just out of the frame were many trees still in peak, golden color. This year it seemed that brilliant colors hung on just a bit longer, and I have some theories about why this happened. The ongoing warm-up of the California (and global) climate is one factor. Another specific to this year (thought not unique to it) is that the absence of significant early season storms or wind allowed leaves that might otherwise have been blown down to remain on the trees a bit longer.

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 | Twitter | 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.