Tag Archives: cottonwood

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

Fall Color, Eastside Canyon

Image December 23, 2024 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Without naming this canyon, I’ll just say that it is one that you have likely visited if you spend much time on the east side of the Sierra Nevada. From the point where you first see the upper canyon, it offers one of the more spectacular views spanning the range from cottonwood country through aspen country to some very high, alpine ridges.

Ascending the eastern slopes of the range, which rise relatively steeply, I am always aware of transitions. In a relatively short distance you can pass though everything from high desert to alpine zones. In this canyon in autumn, the color at the lower elevations comes from cottonwood trees, but by the time you get to the trailheads aspens begin to join the show. I’ve often photographed the whole of the canyon, but this time I decided to limit the view to just the foreground trees and some lower canyon slopes.

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.

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

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

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

Submerged Autumn Leaves

Image January 22, 2024 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

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.

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

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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

High Desert Autumn Color

Image October 23, 2023 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

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.

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

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

Mono Shoreline, Autumn

Image October 22, 2023 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

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.