Tag Archives: conway

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

Aspens and Autumn Snow

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Aspens and Autumn Snow
Early autumn snow and aspens changing color in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Aspens and Autumn Snow. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early autumn snow and aspens changing color in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Yesterday I was out on one of my regular urban walks, and as I crossed over a local creek on a bridge I noticed a significant number of yellow leaves on trees and on the ground. To be sure, there are still far more green leaves, and the actual full-on arrival of autumn color is many weeks away. (Here in California it is common to raise our expectations of fall’s imminent arrival in early September… only to realize once again that we have a month and a half of mostly warm weather ahead of us.) But it is clear that the seasons are in transition and that autumn is coming.

Scenes like the one on this photograph are still a good month away at best. This small grove of aspens grows in an area of what is more or less high desert along the eastern edge of the range. I fondly recall this day and many others like it, traveling along the base of these mountains, looking for aspen color, and seeing snow showers above the crest and signifying the approach of winter.

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

Autumn Color Panorama

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Autumn Color Panorama
Eastern Sierra aspen trees in transition from summer to fall color on a cloudy afternoon

Autumn Color Panorama. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Eastern Sierra aspen trees in transition from summer to fall color on a cloudy afternoon

There is a pretty good chance that this will be my final fall aspen color photograph from the 2018 fall season. In some ways the season felt a bit different, but the grand pattern was a familiar one. The slight variations included what seemed like a slightly early appearance of color at high elevations — we saw some pretty decent color a full week before the end of September. The main part of the season seemed relatively typical, though I did find color appearing a bit later (surprise!) than expected in a few places I visited about a week into October. That was my final visit, but I did hear from folks who were still finding green groves at the end of the third week of the month. I don’t want to make too much of these observations, as I’ve started to feel that that general timetable does remain fairly similar

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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

Multi-colored Aspen Trees

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Multi-colored Aspen Trees
Multi-colored autumn aspen trees along the Eastern Sierra Nevada

Multi-colored Aspen Trees. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Multi-colored autumn aspen trees along the Eastern Sierra Nevada

We are now well past the fall color in the Eastern Sierra Nevada — and in many other locations for that matter — but I’m still working my way through this year’s photographs of the annual transition. One of the ironies of sharing photographs like this is that I don’t have new photographs when people are most attentive to things like fall color… shortly before the event occurs. As it is in progress I’m in the field making new photographs. And it isn’t until after our attention has moved on to other things that I’m able to share the work.

I made this photograph on an overcast late afternoon in the margin between high desert sagebrush country and the start of alpine country. Many beautiful aspens inhabit this zone, though not everywhere. In the right conditions the open terrain allows for clearer views of the trees than you might find among the conifer forests, and sometimes these trees can grow straight and quite tall. It is hard to say what “peak color” means, as at the point that one set of trees has maximum color, other nearby groves may range from green to nearly bare trunks. This might be peak color from that perspective, as all of those phases of the color transition are visible here. The soft, overcast light produces a less stark appearance since the gentle light fills in the shadows and doesn’t overwhelm the color highlights.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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

Aspen Groves, Transitional Color

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Aspen Groves, Transitional Color
Eastern Sierra aspen groves transitioning from green to autumn gold

Aspen Groves, Transitional Color. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Eastern Sierra aspen groves transitioning from green to autumn gold

The colors in this photograph are somewhat subdued, at least by comparison to what sometimes happens at this location when even more colorful trees are lit from behind as the sun drops toward the Sierra crest late on autumn afternoons. On this day the weather was quite cloudy, and sporadic light rain (and perhaps snow at higher elevations) fell as I photographed. Some cloudiness be very beneficial for photographing these trees, as the softer light takes the edge off of the brightest highlights and tends to fill in the shadows, potentially revealing details that can be lost in harsher direct sunlight.

Although I have not printed this photograph as of today, I imagine it as a rather large print, one that would show both the compositional sweep of the curving groves and the details of the trees. The colors are those of a grove in transition from summer green to winter bare trunks, with a few highlights of intense color mixed with trees that are still partially or even entirely green.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook |
Email

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