Tag Archives: cottonwood

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Nature

Submerged Autumn Leaves

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Submerged Autumn Leaves
Submerged Autumn Leaves” — Autumn cottonwood leaves submerged in a wetland pond.

A confession: Although these are “submerged autumn leaves,” I photographed them on New Year’s Day. We spent the day in the Central Valley with friends, celebrating the new year and photographing birds and landscape. The location is primarily wetlands terrain, but there are cottonwood trees all around, and their colorful leaves were everywhere.

I stopped here after someone told me that they had spotted a single bird of an interesting and rare sort in an easily accessible spot. I spoke to a fellow who told me the bird had gracioiusly posed on a branch for him for ten minutes before flying away. Of course, it was gone when I got there! As I left I crossed a little bridge right where the bird wasn’t. I looked down into the water and spotted these interesting leaves.

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

High Desert Autumn Color

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High Desert Autumn Color
A colorful grove of mixed trees in the high desert below the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada.

High Desert Autumn Color. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

A colorful grove of mixed trees in the high desert below the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada.

As the Eastern Sierra aspen color season progressed during October, the colors (to speak generally) work their way down from the highest groves to trees in the high desert, where they may appear alongside cottonwood trees, which themselves produce color even later in the season. On this morning I had finished photographing my sunrise location, but I didn’t want to stop just yet. So I decided to stretch the photography time as far into the later morning hours as possible and to do a bit of exploring at the same time. And this brought me back to this familiar grove in the high desert.

A week earlier these trees were all still almost uniformly green. But now, only days later, the grove was quickly transitioning to bright autumn colors. One of the characteristic parts of experiencing this part of the Eastern Sierra is the meeting of high desert and alpine mountains. So here I decided to juxtapose the two — the foreground trees and sagebrush country, and beyond that high peaks bearing snow, some from last year and some from this year’s early season storms.

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: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Mono Shoreline, Autumn

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Mono Shoreline, Autumn
A spring morning along the shoreline of Mono Lake.

Mono Shoreline, Autumn. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

A spring morning along the shoreline of Mono Lake.

After all these years of visiting and photographing the Sierra Nevada, I start to think I know the place. Actually, I do for the most part. However, there is so much there that it is impossible to really “know” all of it in a single lifetime. This fall’s two autumn-color visits to East Side reminded me of this. Although it happens regularly, I was surprised by the number of things I “discovered” for the first time in places that I thought I knew really well. I’ve shared a few of the resulting photographs recently, and now I add this one to the collection.

I had decided to look away from the aspens and head to Mono Lake on this autumn morning, and I had a specific place and photograph in mind elsewhere along the shoreline. I photographed that subject before dawn, and after finishing I decided to move on. But as often happens, while I watch the road enough to avoid getting into trouble, while scanning the passing landscape I caught sight of this little scene in a spot that I usually pass quickly in route to something else.

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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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Desert Mountains, Morning Storm

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Desert Mountains, Morning Storm
A morning storm drops snow and rain on desert mountains, Death Valley National Park.

Desert Mountains, Morning Storm. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

A morning storm drops snow and rain on desert mountains, Death Valley National Park.

In addition to being an example of beautiful morning light, this photograph is a reminder about an important principle of landscape photography. I’ll get to that point in a moment. I made the photograph on our final morning in Death Valley before packing and starting home. Things didn’t look promising when I got up before dawn — it was overcast and there was a small chance of rain. I headed out into the Valley to photograph where, indeed, it was cloudy and I did get rained on. But for a brief moment this beautiful light appeared over distant mountains.

The landscape photography principle? There might be more than one, now that I think about it. The first is that if something special happens and you are not out there, you aren’t going to photograph it. So even on days when the prospects seem unpromising, you go. It helps to remember that not all days are astonishingly beautiful, and you’ll have to deal with the less-amazing days if you expect to be there for the miracles of light. Another principle? The most interesting light often arrives in the least promising situations — for example, on a gray, cloudy morning when beams of light unexpectedly break through a gap in the clouds and light up desert peaks against that dark, dramatic background.

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.

Blog | About | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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