Tag Archives: cold

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Early Snow, Buried Plants

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Early Snow, Buried Plants
Early Snow, Buried Plants

Early Snow, Buried Plants. North Lake Area, California. October 8, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An early fall Sierra Nevada snow storm buries meadow plants.

As I have written elsewhere, this year’s aspen color season got off to a rather strange start. Just as the first, high-elevation trees were starting to get their early peak color, an unusually cold series of winter-like storms swept over California and the Sierra during the first week of October. The storms dropped more than a foot of snow in some places, at a time of year when a few inches-deep dustings are more the rule. As the last storm came to an end, I crossed the Sierra via Tioga Pass literally hours after it was reopened, and headed south toward the Bishop area in the evening.

Early the next morning I drove up into the Bishop Creek drainage, encountering the first snow below 8000′. Shortly after passing the village of Aspendell I came to the junction with the gravel road to north lake. The road had not been plowed (and I later heard that it had been closed for several days) but I saw that a few other cars had headed up that way, so I pointed my all-wheel-drive vehicle that direction and drove the short, frozen road to the lower end of the lake. I parked here, loaded up my camera gear, and set off on foot.

It was cold! Before I finished a few hours later I was quite cold, which isn’t surprising since the temperature remained below freezing and I was working in snow. The storm had taken out quite a lot of the colorful aspen leaves. I photographed a few trees, but I also concentrated on other subjects such as fallen aspen leaves lying on the fresh snow. As I walked along the lake I realized that the scene really looked more like winter than like autumn, so I switched gears mentally and made some photographs of the snow that seem more like what I might shoot in the middle of winter. This photograph shows a section of the lakeside meadow that had been covered deeply enough with snow that in places only a few plants were still visible.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Dew on Lupine and Grasses

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Dew on Lupine and Grasses
Dew on Lupine and Grasses

Dew on Lupine and Grasses. Castle Rock State Park, California. April 24, 2005. © Copyright 2005. G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dew from morning fog collects on meadow grasses and lupine flowers, Santa Cruz Mountains.

It is a wonder that I even consider this photograph worth posting. (Hope I’m not wrong about this!) I made this photograph six years ago when I was doing my very first investigation of digital SLR shooting after having been a film photographer (at least apart from some earlier more or less point and shoot stuff) for many years. To “test the waters” I had picked up a very inexpensive and modest Canon “Digital Rebel” XT DSLR and a single zoom lens. The camera actually wasn’t a bad performer at all. While these models were small and lightweight and lacked some features of their more expensive brethren, they had essentially the same sensors and for those who shoot the way I generally did the other features were mostly superfluous. The first DSLR-sourced print I ever sold came from this camera. The lens was another story. For my “test” I simply picked up a reasonably inexpensive wide range 17-85mm variable aperture lens. This lens has its pluses and minuses (read more here), but for me the minuses were eventually deal-breakers. However, this little handheld photograph was made with that very modest lens, and as long as I don’t try to make it too big I think it works fine.

The scene is a typical one in the oak and grassland areas of Central California that surround the area where I live. This particular scene was at Castle Rock State Park, in the Santa Cruz Mountains between Silicon Valley and the coast. At this time of year the weather can evolve in any of several directions, including rain, fog, brilliant sun and heat, and more – but on this day I was shooting in very damp coastal fog along the top of the ridges.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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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.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Lupine and Fog

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Lupine and Fog
Lupine and Fog

Lupine and Fog. Mission Peak, Fremont, California. April 16, 2005.© Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Spring lupine blossoms grow on fog-shrouded slopes of Mission Peak above Fremont, California.

While doing a major review of the past half-dozen years of raw files this week I have come across quite a few photographs that I had more or less forgotten. (I’ve also deleted a lot of old raw files, but that is a different story.) While I had forgotten this photograph, I remember the day I took it quite well and the memory of the photograph came back as soon as I found it.

Mission Peak is more than 2000′ feet above the Mission San Jose (part of Fremont) area of the San Francisco Bay Area, in the East Bay a bit north of San Jose. The peak is a very popular hiking location due to its proximity to urban areas, its quick access to near-wilderness, and the fact the summit provides a spectacular view of the southern parts of the San Francisco Bay, ranging from the South Bay and the Santa Cruz Mountains all the way up to San Francisco and, on clear days, beyond. On this day it was not clear, at least not at the start of the hike – it was extremely foggy, quite wet, and rather cold. But anyone who photographs flowers much knows that soft and diffused light can be your friend, and this fog certainly provided that light. The fog-obscured hills beyond are covered in the intense green (what I call the “impossible green”) of the California grasslands in spring.

By the way, I recall that as I continued on up the trail past these flowers and approached the summit of the peak I emerged above the fog bank to find hillsides carpeted with more lupine and with California golden poppy flowers.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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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.

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

Black Oaks in Winter Fog and Snow

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Black Oaks in Winter Fog and Snow
Black Oaks in Winter Fog and Snow

Black Oaks in Winter Fog and Snow. Yosemite Valley, California. January 16, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black oak trees with a few remaining autumn leaves in foggy and snow-covered El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite Valley.

I’m always fascinated by the trees in El Capitan Meadow – it doesn’t matter whether it is spring when the meadow is green and the trees are getting new leaves, summer when the meadow is filled with people watching climbers overhead on El Capitan, fall when the grasses turn golden and the leaves change to fall colors, or winter when the meadow may be snow-covered. Sometimes I tell myself that I’m just going to drive past on my way to another destination, but I almost always end up stopping for a least a brief look around – and I frequently end up making a few photographs.

That was the case on this mid-January day, when I drove through on my way to make photographs up on Crane Flat Road. As I passed by the meadow I noticed that low fog was floating above the snow, so I pulled over to look at the scene more closely. I was somewhat surprised to see how many leaves were still hanging on the oak trees so late in the season, and I decided to try to find a photograph that would include them, along with the snow and a bit of the fog and the dark shapes of the tree trunks.

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Text, photographs, and other post content 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.