Tag Archives: california

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Eastside Dawn

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Eastside Dawn
Dawn light on the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada near Long Valley

Eastside Dawn. Sierra Nevada, California. October 10, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dawn light on the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada near Long Valley

I regard myself as a bit of a sunrise connoisseur, having arisen well before dawn on many, many mornings — almost every morning, actually — and often gone out to observe and photograph at first light. Trust me, I do understand how hard it is to get out of a warm bed (or warm sleeping bag) in darkness, dress, and head out into the still-dark world. But if you can start to make it a habit there is a good chance that you’ll become addicted — and what better kind of addiction is there than to need to see the first light?

I photographed this on an autumn morning when I headed out into the valley to the east of the escarpment of the Sierra. It was, as it usually is in mid-October, very cold when we arrived. But it was also very quiet and still, and steam was rising from nearby springs and creeks as the sky began to listen and the first light touched the peaks of the Sierra. It worked its way down the face of the range, across fluted alpine faces, into deep mountain valleys, and eventually to the rounded, tree-covered hills at the foot of the range.

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

Basalt Columns and Lichen

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Basalt Columns and Lichen
“Basalt Columns and Lichen” — Yellow lichen growing on the basalt columns of Devils Postpile National Monument

This is one of several photographs I made of the Postpile on this autumn morning, and every time I post one more I get to tell a bit of a story on myself. Landscape photographers often get up very early, sometimes many hours before sunrise. On this morning we had plans to do just that, and if we had gotten up on time we would likely have gone of to photograph aspens somewhere. But we overslept! It had been a long week, the drive to the east side of the range the evening before had been a long one, and we had arrived late. So rather than waking up hours before sunrise, it was probably more like an hour after sunrise.

We were initially a bit disappointed at losing a sunrise, but we decided to just take it easy, and soon we sat down to a nice civilized breakfast — also something of an anomaly for early morning photographers. Eventually we decided to wander out and just go up to Devils Postpile, which wasn’t far away. Arriving well after the supposed good light, I was going to just leave my camera equipment in the car, but Patty persuaded me to take it. And was I glad I did. Here the sun rises behind the face of the postpile, which was still in shadow, though receiving some reflected light from behind us and from the blue sky. I had a short time to work in this lovely soft light before the sun finally peeked over the top and I found myself photographing straight into its light.

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Brewery Window

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Brewery Window
A window at Hapa’s Brewery in San Jose, California

Brewery Window. San Jose, California. June 21, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A window at Hapa’s Brewery in San Jose, California

Today’s photograph is the result of something other than endeavoring to go out and make photographs, but it might also be evidence that some kind of photograph can be made almost anywhere at almost any time. We heard there was an event hosted by Fujifilm at a relatively new brewery not too far from where we live. We have been meaning to visit this place for months without ever quite managing to go, but the prospect of getting to play with a range of Fujifilm camera equipment and try out a new brewery was enough to get us to go.

The premise of the event was loaning various Fujifilm cameras and lenses to interested folks for fifteen minutes at a time. I already really on a Fujifilm system for my street and travel photography, but I thought it would be fun to play with their tiny rangefinder X100F, a small fixed-lens camera in the street photography tradition. I didn’t have a lot of exotic subjects to work with — basically a brewery full (mostly) of people trying out cameras! This photograph had two goals. The mundane one was testing the bokeh of the fixed lens on this small camera. The aesthetic angle was placing the window frame in such a way that it divided the background into four independent images rectangles that are quite different from one another.

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.