Tag Archives: conifer

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Forest, Morning, Autumn Color

October 25, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early morning autumn colors in the underbrush of a Yosemite forest.

I like to visit Yosemite National Park every year around Halloween, when fall colors often peak in Yosemite Valley — including oaks, dogwood, cottonwood, big leaf maple, and more. This year I went a bit earlier — slightly more than a week before the end of October — since I wanted to drop in on a gallery opening reception in Oakhurst, for the last hurrah of the 2017 Yosemite Renaissance exhibit, which includes one of my photographs. I went up on the day of the opening, starting in Yosemite Valley. I spent the day photographing, but also marveling at the astoundingly huge number of people who were crowding the place. I try to avoid The Valley in the summer, especially on weekends, but I figured that October wouldn’t be so bad. I was wrong! In any case, by going away from the most popular places and a few other strategies, I was able to find some relative solitude.

I stayed in Oakhurst than night and then got up well before dawn the next morning. My loose plan was to head toward Glacier Point for sunrise, but I was sidetracked along the way — first by these fall colors and later by the opportunity to photograph a forest covered with wildfire smoke. Regarding that color, I already knew that there can be a lot of beautiful color along the road between Oakhurst and the Valley, and that it can be especially beautiful very early in the morning, when there are few people and the direct sunlight has still not arrived. I found this spot that I had scoped out the previous day, and I paused for some photography. Subjects like this are about as far from “iconic” as one can be, but they often evoke deeper associations with the feelings of such places than photographs of another popular mountain. As I made this photograph it was quiet, still, and cold, and the pre-dawn light was filtering down into the darkened forest. The colorful underbrush was the first thing I saw, but soon I realized the quiet beauty of the tall trees in this burned-over area as they marched up the hill toward the light.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspens and Conifers

October 24, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Fall color before sunrise in the Eastern Sierra Nevada

I had visited this place a few days earlier on a separate visit, and at that time the colors were still not fully developed. At that time I wasn’t sure I would be back, since I have photographed this area quite a few times in the past, and I figured that my subsequent visit might take me to different areas of the Sierra. However, I’m an opportunist and I often make decisions about where I’ll go and what I’ll photograph quite close to the last minute, responding to circumstances and conditions. And on this morning, a visit to this spot looked promising.

Each year the color change patterns are a bit different. A spot that might be green one year on a particular date may be in full color during another year, or it might simply lose its leaves without changing. While things tend to happen at fairly similar times each year — with some exceptions — the state of the trees at those points in time can vary. For example, I have come to this spot at about this time and found the lower portion of the grove almost devoid of leaves, likely in the aftermath of cold and wind. This time the color still looked good, thought I could tell that at the lower edges it wasn’t going to last a lot longer. I as also intrigued by the somewhat unusual band of green trees still found in the bottom of the ascending gully.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Back-lit Trees and Ridges

October 13, 2017 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Low, late afternoon sun back-lights autumn aspen trees and receding ridges, Eastern Sierra Nevada

What can I say? I love back-light! The more difficult the light, the more I like it. Often I shoot almost directly into the sun when it is low in the sky, especially when there is some haze that makes the atmosphere appear to glow. (I’ve become adept at shading the lens from the direct light — using my hand, my hat, or anything else handy to try to prevent lens flare and reduce the hazy quality that comes when this light is directly on the lens.) The kind of light I’m looking for is the sort that is too bright to look at.

We arrived at this location late in the day, as per my plan. I know it well enough to recognize that the light can become quite interesting just before the sun drops behind mountains to the west. For a short time the light slants across the landscape, almost parallel to the slope of the land as it drops to the east. This produces that glow I mentioned, it accentuates the atmospheric recession effect, and the leaves of trees can glow with the light coming from behind. For this photograph I found a spot where lines of colorful aspens crossed the frame from bottom to about half way up, and then ridges continued the pattern until the final pattern with its row of conifer trees.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Color Transition

October 8, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Brush and aspens undergoing the autumn color transition in the eastern Sierra Nevada

When we think of fall color in the Sierra Nevada, for many the first (and perhaps only?) thoughts are of the aspens. The aspens are beautiful — more about them in a moment — but they aren’t the whole show. For example, where the high desert environment meets the mountain environment there can be a lot of spectacularly colorful brush, and the dried grasses contribute their own golden brown tones. Willows can become quite yellow, and even some ferns can glow in the right light. I suppose that this photograph is largely about aspens, but it chose to include some of those other color sources, too.

The aspen color transition is not a sudden thing. In fact, if you start with the earliest oddball individual yellow leaves, often seen by mid September and sometimes earlier, and look all the way out until late October when the last leaves finally fall, you can be looking at a period of as long as six weeks. (To be clear, the core of the season is still the first half of October plus a little.) Even in individual locations the color rarely changes all at once, and brilliantly colorful trees may stand next to trees that are still green. This location along the eastern base of the range is a fine example. Obviously some of the trees are approaching peak color. But if you look closely you may spot a few trees that are already bare. And the great or almost-entirely green trees area still several days to a week before their best color.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: conifer

Forest, Morning, Autumn Color

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Aspens and Conifers

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Back-lit Trees and Ridges

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Autumn Color Transition

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