Tag Archives: Cloud

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

Forest and Evening Fog

November 4, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 5 Comments

Evening fog drifts among forest trees of Yosemite Valley.

Yes, this was shot from Wawona Tunnel View…in the evening… while standing in a line of dozens of other photographers. Sigh. :-)

I’ve written before that I do not automatically go to Tunnel View in the evening. However, if I think something special might happen and I don’t have another subject in mind I will sometimes join the tripod line. (I also sometimes find myself there on odd evenings when almost no one else is there, but that is a different story.) On this late-October day I had been having a great time photographing the misty, cloudy, and sometimes rainy landscape – perhaps among my favorite photography conditions in the Valley. As evening approached, I was pretty certain that the wet conditions and the falling temperatures would cause fog to appear among the trees on the Valley floor close to sunset, and I have some ideas about photographs of trees in this fog that I wanted to try.

So I went to Tunnel View, put a very long lens on my camera, and queued up along the stone wall at the overlook. Because I did not plan to photograph the traditional “valley view” at all, I did not worry too much about where I was in this throng – and I ended up in a spot from which the familiar view was slightly obstructed. But that was OK since I was going to be pointing my lens down. This fog is not an unusual phenomenon, but it is different every time it occurs. Sometimes it builds up high enough to hover around the upper reaches of El Capitan. Sometimes there will just be thin wisps up the center of the Valley. Sometimes it is almost stationary and sometimes it moves quickly. On this evening it started out slowly and somewhat thin, but soon a breeze began blowing the moist air up from the west and a long ribbon of fog developed along the north side of the Valley floor, and I focused my attention along the borders near the edges of the fog.

This photograph is 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: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Sunrise Rainbow and Virga Above the Buttermilks

November 3, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Brief sunrise light produces a rainbow and virga over the Buttermilks in the eastern Sierra Nevada above Bishop, California.

I have a story to tell about this photograph and how it came about. I’ve been in the Buttermilks — the rounded hills between Bishop, California and the actual Sierra Nevada — on a number of previous occasions. I’ve photographed there in the early morning when the first light hits these hills and the peaks of the Sierra, and I have some potential images filed away in my mind, waiting for a time when the light is right. I also know the Sierra well enough – though certainly not completely nor perfectly! – that I can pick up on developing conditions that might not apparent to someone less familiar with the range.

On this early October morning I was camped up in the Bishop Creek drainage. The forecast was for rain and wind and, sure enough, during the night the wind picked up and it began to rain. I woke before dawn and at the first light it was apparent that it would be overcast. This is not necessarily a bad thing for photographing fall color, but it can mean that subjects that would otherwise work at dawn might need to wait. I was thinking about how to modify my aspen photography plans when I noticed a bit of incipient color in the still-dim clouds, and it occurred to me that a special set of conditions might occur. Although I couldn’t see to the east from this campground, I know that sometimes clouds above the Sierra end a ways to the east over or beyond the White Mountains, and when this happens there is a narrow band of clear sky right above the horizon — and if everything works out just right a strip of dawn light shines through this gap, first hitting the clouds and then working its way down from the peaks to the lower foothills before quickly disappearing and leaving very bland light.

No sure thing at all, but I decided to dash down the road (past the steady stream of aspen photographers streaming up the road!) and see if I could get to the Buttermilks in time. I left the main road and headed up a side road that I know, somewhat resenting a (very reasonable!) 25mph speed limit near some roadside residences as I began to see the clouds above the crest starting to light up. As I hit the last section of gravel road the sky began to glow and I sped up, heading for a specific spot where I had photographed this scene before. With seconds I saw the light pick out a band of virga (rain that does not reach the ground) and a rainbow began to form in front of the eastern escarpment as I arrived at the hilltop where I planned to shoot. I quickly set up my tripod and mounted the 70-200mm lens (which I already knew would be the right one for this shot) and literally ran up a nearby knoll which I knew would put the foreground hill in a decent place in the composition. I was ready just as the soft light hit the foreground and I made this photograph. Within a minute the rainbow as gone!

Sometimes you just get lucky…

This photograph is 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

Grazing Cattle and Aspen Groves, Conway Summit

November 1, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Cattle graze in front of large aspen groves near Conway Summit, California.

Just about anyone who has every photographed aspens in the area around Lee Vining is probably familiar with this location – and I’ve certainly shot there quite a few times. From highway 395 the aspens extend west and up toward the peaks of the Sierra crest, and the at the right hour in the late afternoon the backlight can light up the leaves of the trees. When I visited this time the trees were in transition with some still green, others very colorful, and some almost leafless already. I was also lucky to have some clouds at the end of several cloudless days of photography. (Normal people like perfect blue sky, but photographers are not normal – we tend to like weather!) When I saw the clouds starting to form above the crest early in the afternoon I thought that something interesting might happen later near Conway so I made a point of heading that direction.

This photograph features, of all things, cattle – not my usual subject, perhaps! The area where these aspens grow seems to be at least as much a pasture as it is aspen groves, and I’ve seen cattle grazing in this spot before. (See comments for a note from a member of the family that owns the land.) As the clouds created shadows over the higher slopes in the background, for a moment the sun still hit the foreground trees and these cattle.

This shot also ties in with my recent post on using various focal lengths for landscape photography, in that this photograph was made with what some might regard as an unlikely landscape lens, a 100-400mm zoom! But in this case, this lens at 250mm was just what I needed to more tightly frame the bit of foreground pasture and sunlit trees and compress the distance between them and the shadowed hills beyond.

This photograph is 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

Conway Summit Aspens in Rain

October 4, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 7 Comments

Fall rain and mist mute the colors of the extensive aspen groves above Conway Summit on Highway 395 in the eastern Sierra Nevada.

Just back from the eastern Sierra an hour or so earlier, and I want to get something posted before going to bed – so here is more or less the last photograph I made today. It rained lightly (and sometimes more heavily) all day, starting when I woke up in Bishop Canyon, continuing as I photographed in that general area until the early afternoon, and then following me north as I headed up to the Lee Vining area. Although I saw a few spots of sun as I drove towards this huge aspen grove near Conway Summit, by the time I arrived it was raining steadily. My plan was to decide here whether to continue my aspen hunt into the evening as I drove further north… or to recognize that the weather was going to be an issue and instead head up Tioga Pass and over the pass to return home.

Since it was raining at Conway Summit, after stopping to make a few exposures (including this one) I headed back to Lee Vining and then up to Tioga Pass. This Conway Summit photograph probably illustrates some important variables of landscape photograph in general and aspen photography specifically. Based on visits to this area in previous years, I was expecting less color than I found – while a lot of trees were still green, the higher trees had turned their most intense colors, and sections of the lower groves also were quite colorful. Despite the planning that gets me to places like this at the right time of day and at about the right time of the year, some things cannot be controlled – in this case, it was the weather. Also, even though I came here with a fairly specific shooting plan, once I arrived the conditions were tough enough that I had to work quickly. Fortunately I know this place pretty well, so I was able to find the scene I wanted to shoot without a lot of searching and I was then able to capture a few frames quickly… and get back into the car and out of the rain!

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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