Tag Archives: cascade

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Mountain Stream

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Mountain Stream
A Sierra Nevada stream cascades over and around rocks

Mountain Stream. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A Sierra Nevada stream cascades over and around rocks.

To be honest, photographing moving water like this can easily become addictive, and there are endless variations on how you might do it. Shutter speed variations allow a range of interpretations between stopped motion and motion-suggesting blur. Zoom in close and the water can be the entire subject, or work from a bit more distance and incorporate the surrounding terrain. Choose your time of day and get warm or cool coloration. Photograph at a time when the water reflects light on nearby objects and introduce a wider range of colors into the composition.

During our one-week stay high in the Eastern Sierra we were fortunate to have many opportunities to photograph water, ranging from many nearby alpine lakes to the abundant creeks and cascades that were still flowing despite the rather late date in the season. One evening I wandered a few hundred feet down below our base camp to this area where I had walked this creek a day or two earlier, and I spent a good deal of time photographing it.

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

Cascades, Tuolumne River

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Cascades, Tuolumne River
Cascades, Tuolumne River

Cascades, Tuolumne River. Yosemite National Park, California. September 8, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The Tuolumne River crosses cascades past rain-dampened granite to begin its descent into the Tuolumne River Canyon

We had some “interesting” and somewhat surprising weather on this early September back-county Yosemite visit. We were out for nearly ten days, and before hitting the trail many of us had been following long-range weather forecasts. As photographers, we were actually hoping for some “interesting” weather, but nothing appeared to be coming our way. A few days from the end of the trip, as we moved from one location to another, we were surprised to find ourselves under a huge plume of wildfire smoke, which we later found out came from the “Meadow” fire that quickly burned out of control in a somewhat different area of the park.

That evening we were in camp after dark, sitting around and talking and doing the usual camp stuff, when we were completely surprised by a flash of lightning in the sky to our southeast. Since we had not seen anything remotely suggesting rain or thunderstorms earlier in the day we weren’t quite sure what to make of this… but within a short time we started to pick up some rain. Overnight we all had plenty of opportunities to hear rain pattering on the roofs of our tents. When we awoke the next morning, a decent amount of rain had fallen, and there were still clouds around. It turned out that the rains continued off and on through them middle of the day. Between showers we headed out to make photographs, and as one shower approached a couple of us headed back to camp. Topping a ridge on a shortcut route, we had a clear view of the rocky terrain through which the Tuolumne River cascades into the upper Tuolumne Canyon, with the rocks still wet from the rain.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Cascade, Boulders

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Cascade, Boulders
Cascade, Boulders

Cascade, Boulders. Yosemite National Park, California. May 4, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A seasonal waterfall cascades past granite boulders, Yosemite National Park

I guess I’ll go ahead and make this a “waterfall weekend” by posting a second photograph of the same little cascading creek that was featured in yesterday’s photograph. This small beauty is a seasonal cascade that is right next to the roadway—I’m definitely not taking any “wilderness photography” credit for this one. (Though the character if the creek is very similar to and remiss me of many such rocky creeks found in less accessible locations.) As is the case with some many such small creeks, this one comes and goes quickly in most years. It does not necessarily dry up completely, but it often diminishes to an unimpressive trickle later on.

Although the accessible location makes photographing this fall easy, there are still a few challenges. Perhaps the most mundane is that, given that one is photographing from the shoulder of a highway, you have to watch out for passing vehicles! From a photographic perspective there are a few more interesting challenges. One is that of composition. This section of the waterfall is some distance above the camera position, and there are only a few clean shots of it. I wanted some of the curving and flowing shapes at the top along with the faster moving, and hence narrower, section at the bottom, and I wanted to include the blocky, wet, and reflective rocks. The light is a bit tricky here, too. Fortunately, the cascade remains in shadow well after sunrise, but the best light seems to come at just about the moment when the sun starts to rise above the ridge behind the fall. Consequently, though it isn’t visible in this tightly cropped composition, I was shooting almost straight into the sun!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Granite, Falling Water

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Granite, Falling Water
Granite, Falling Water

Granite, Falling Water. Yosemite National Park, California. May 4, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A spring creek cascades across dark fractured granite, Yosemite National Park

Yosemite’s Tioga Pass Road (Highway 120), which passes through the park and across the Sierra crest at Tioga Pass, opened earlier than usual this year. It was not the earliest recorded opening, but the very small snow pack of the winter season meant that in early May it looked much more like a typical June. There was some snow left on the ground, but rather than being the deep and compacted remains of months of winter snow it was mostly what was left from a single spring storm a few days earlier.

In a more typical year, a drive over this route on the opening weekend provides an experience that is, to my way of thinking, mostly about water. Not only do we get to see vast remaining snow banks holding water that will irrigate the Sierra for months to come, but the spring melt brings wild, watery scenes nearly everywhere. Waterfalls and creeks appear in places where there is almost no evidence of their existence weeks or months later. Creeks spill across the highway flood sections of it. Larger creeks and rivers overflow their banks and turn meadows into lakes. But not this year. The photograph features a small section of a larger cascade which bounces down a steep and rugged section of granite boulders. Beautiful as it is, it should look like this in late June rather than early May.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.