Tag Archives: capped

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Morning Sun, Panamint Mountains

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Morning Sun, Panamint Mountains
Morning sun on the eastern face of the Panamint Mountains.

Morning Sun, Panamint Mountains. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Morning sun on the eastern face of the Panamint Mountains.

The light on this morning was interesting, a bit softer than expected due to thin clouds to the east that muted the colors and contrast a bit, plus a bit of the ubiquitous Death Valley haze. I made the photograph back in late January, so it isn’t a big surprise to see a dusting of snow on the higher peaks along the ridge of the Panamint Mountains.

The Panamint Mountains stand along the western side of Death Valley and are a remarkable range in many ways — their scale, the human history they contain, and their relative inaccessibility. While humans have, no doubt, appeared from time to time in this slice of landscape, it is a forbidding place and not one traversed easily. From Valley floor to the highest peaks is over 11,000′ feet, and the terrain between the two is immense and rugged.

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: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Sierra Foothills, White Mountains

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Sierra Foothills, White Mountains
A long view from the Buttermilks in the Sierra Nevada eastern foothills to the crest of the distant White Mountains.

Sierra Foothills, White Mountains. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A long view from the Buttermilks in the Sierra Nevada eastern foothills to the crest of the distant White Mountains.

Recently I was once again pondering how the way we approached the Sierra Nevada at first affected our overall perceptions of the character of the Range of Light. As I have noted before, during the first decades of my relationship with these mountains I approached from the west, crossing semi-coastal mountains, crossing the agricultural Central Valley, rising gradually into oak-grasslands and eventually to conifer forest, and only much later finally arriving in the “High Sierra” world of open meadows and alpine peaks. Contrast this with the experience of those approaching from the east, where the range presents a very long “wall” of peaks that towers above high desert, in places rising by as much as 10,000 feet above that dry landscape.

This photograph is, probably obviously, one that focuses on that eastern part of the Sierra. But here I look away from the Sierra Nevada, past the rugged and “barren” terrain of dry hills at the base of the range, across the expanse of Owens Valley, and toward the (also dry) peaks of the White Mountains. To put it plainly, you won’t see anything like this on the west side!

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Meadow, Peaks, and Storm

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Meadow, Peaks, and Storm
A storm gathers above an alpine meadow and beyond snow-capped peaks

Meadow, Peaks, and Storm. John Muir Wilderness, California. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A storm gathers above an alpine meadow and beyond snow-capped peaks

Not too long ago I posted another photograph made on this same afternoon, from roughly the same place, and featuring very similar subject. In that post I noted that I had made several photographs of this subject on this afternoon, and that I planned to share all of them eventually, perhaps with a bit of commentary concerning how each represented this subject in its own way. The general setting was a large, subalpine meadow surrounded by mountains and forest, and with expansive views across a nearby canyon to the high, rocky country on the far side. A large afternoon thunderstorm was building beyond the high ridge, but meanwhile the sun was bright at my locations. The primary elements of the scene included meadow, mountains, dark clouds, the small pond or tarn, and the nearby trees. There are many ways to “see” a subject photographically, and I tried several variations with this one.

I wanted to include the pond in the portion of the meadow in the photograph, but in this interpretation I decide not to put it in the center of the frame, but instead to have it off to the side, perhaps giving it a bit less presence in the scene. I wanted to include the small foreground trees to increase the sense of depth in the image and to ensure that there wasn’t empty space in the foreground. I framed the mountains this way so that I could place the dark peak in the middle, and envelop it in the higher peaks stretching back behind it. A remaining question was about how much sky in include. In another interpretation I included a lot of sky, placing the horizon near the center of the frame. Here I did what I more typically do, placing the horizon very high and including only a small strip of sky at the top. This draws attention to the landscape itself, and I was still able to include enough sky to make the dark thunder-storm clouds visible.

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: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Eastern Sierra Nevada Near June Lake

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Eastern Sierra Nevada Near June Lake
Eastern Sierra Nevada Near June Lake

Eastern Sierra Nevada Near June Lake. Mono County, California. August 10, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trees ascend sage-covered hills toward the Sierra Nevada crest near June Lake, California.

Near highway 395 in Mono County, the main north-south route east of the Sierra crest, these open stands of large conifers ascend from the high desert sagebrush country towards the peaks of the Sierra crest, which rise much more abruptly on this side of the range than on the gentle west side. The tall ridge is above the June Lakes resort area between Mammoth Lakes and Lee Vining.

While my primary goal on this trip was to photograph in the Yosemite high country along Tioga Pass Road, smoke from a wildfire near Glacier Point in the park was drifting over the Tuolumne area and creating a lot of very non-photogenic haze. I had a hunch that by dropped over to the east side of the range I might be able to get away from the smoke or at least find areas where it wasn’t so thick. The smoke was still affecting the light near Lee Vining, but I didn’t have to drive too far south to get out of its path, though even here there is a bit of haze increasing the effect of atmospheric recession.

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