Tag Archives: cottonwood

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

Autumn Afternoon, Merced River Cottonwood Trees

November 7, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Hazy autumn afternoon light on golden cottonwood trees growing along the banks of the Merced River, Yosemite Valley

As I try to do every fall, I visited Yosemite Valley for a few days right at the end of October so that I could photograph fall color and other seasonal subjects. I typically target my visits for near the end of the last week of the month, since at about this time the cottonwood, big leaf maple, black oak, and dogwood trees can produce beautiful colors and the meadows turn wonderful shades of tan and brown and gold. There are other benefits to visiting at this time of year, too – far fewer people, cooler temperatures, availability of campsites, and I often run into friends and other interesting people in the Valley.

I’m a big fan of backlit trees, and I have shot in this area of meadows and cottonwood trees and river bank many times before. In the afternoon the light begins to come into the valley from the low sun in the west and while trees can be backlit, some of the granite cliffs are already in shadow. If there is a bit of atmospheric haze, I like it even more! On this afternoon I decided to poke around along the banks of the Merced in this area where it flows through a series of bends among meadows and forest – and there were backlit cottonwood trees galore to work with!

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

Cottonwood Leaves, Autumn

November 5, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Leaves, wet from morning frost, litter the ground near the banks of the Merced River

During my recent visit to Yosemite Valley to photograph autumn subjects, I kept seeing a particular stand of very small cottonwood trees growing densely close together near the Merced River. They were in a spot with somewhat tricky lighting, and the first few times I saw them the light was not ideal, so I filed the subject away mentally and figured I would come back and shoot them in the right light. Eventually, I returned, and although the light was still not ideal for the photograph I had in mind – and did not make yet on this trip – I decided to walk out to the trees and take a look and perhaps make a few close-up photographs.

None of the trees are taller than perhaps fifteen feet and some are only a couple of feet tall, but they grow together densely. (My hunch is that in some future decade when they mature only a few of them will survive.) I began by photographing groups of their vertical trunks from outside the grove, looking for interesting relationships among the forms of their trunks and for a few spots where a solitary leaf was still stuck in the branches of a tree. Then I walked into the grove, looking at the trees themselves and at the ground below, which was some combination of dew-soaked and flattened grass mixed with the leave that had fallen from the trees.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Cottonwoods, Meadow, and Stumps

July 11, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Stumps of dead brush in a meadow with autumn cotton wood trees, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

We encountered these first autumn-foliage cottonwoods shortly after we entered this canyon, and this being our first day shooting in this area, I think we (or at least I) felt obligated to shoot every possible subject, since everything was so new on this day. Later I might have passed up these cottonwoods which, despite their brilliant color, were it a tricky spot to photograph and were just about to end up in the direct morning sunlight.

Trying to find some sort of composition that could include them but not make them the whole story, I first saw the brushy meadow with its light green grasses and older dry grass, but that was too featureless of a foreground for what I had in mind. Then I saw these old dead stumps of perhaps tamarisk or some other desert plant that were still standing in a section of this meadowy area, and I decide to use them to fill the foreground.

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Cottonwood, Fallen Monolith, and Cliff

May 20, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sunlight reflected from nearby canyon walls illuminates an autumn cottonwood tree in front of a fallen sandstone monolith and vertical cliff face.

I may be repeating a story I’ve previously told, but here goes. Earlier during my late-October visit to Utah we had wandered into this area, only to be largely stymied by clouds, cold, absurdly strong winds, and even a bit of rain. It was a bit disappointing, in that we had really looked forward to visiting this portion of the Escalante River, and when we started out in the early morning and saw a lot of beautiful fall color we thought we were in for a good day of shooting. Although that day was not a complete loss, it wasn’t what we hoped for – and by the end of the day we were struggling against very strong winds and cold.

Fortunately, nearly a week later we found ourselves back in roughly the same area of Utah, and as we considered the next day’s possible shooting locations the idea of giving this spot a second try came up. After considering that alternatives of trying a new location or going back, we decided to go back. It was a good decision! Where the first visit had been cold, cloudy, windy and even a bit damp, the second visit brought warmer conditions, almost completely clear skies… and most important, nearly windless conditions. (At one point we were cautiously admitting to one another that we had made exposures of foliage that lasted as long as a couple of seconds!) Near one large bend in the canyon there was a spectacular abundance of “targets” – brilliant cottonwood and box elder trees, beautiful canyon walls of various colors, fallen leaves, and more. On the previous visit we had all looked at this little scene of a large fallen section of the canyon wall with golden cottonwoods growing all around, and then pretty much continued on since the trees where being whipped around by the wind. But on this second visit the wind was calm, and light was reflected into the scene from sunlit sandstone walls to our left.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: cottonwood

Autumn Afternoon, Merced River Cottonwood Trees

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Cottonwood Leaves, Autumn

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Cottonwoods, Meadow, and Stumps

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Cottonwood, Fallen Monolith, and Cliff

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

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