Tag Archives: country

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Lake and Mountain, Morning

August 15, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dawn light comes to mountain slopes above a reflecting High Sierra backcountry lake

I woke up early on the third and final morning of this pack trip — not early by photographic standards, but just before dawn, nonetheless. The rest of my party — perhaps because they are not photographers — continued to sleep in for another hour or more as I crawled out of my tent, gathered up my (downsized for this trip) camera equipment, and wandered off to see what I could see.

The sun had still not quite risen as I came to the top of a small hill above the lake, but very soon its light began to touch the highest peaks and stream across the shoulder of the large peak towering above the opposite shoreline of the lake. Sometimes the scale of a subject such as this mountain seems more obvious to me when I choose to not include all of it, so I chose to crop tightly enough to not show the peak — or the relatively uninteresting plain blue sky above it. (My theory is that a photograph framed so that the entire subject isn’t visible can sometimes produce an impression that the subject is so large that it cannot be contained within the frame.) As I made this exposure the first light was hitting the rocky face of the upper slopes of the mountain, and that light was reflected in the undisturbed early morning surface of the lake.

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

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

Evening Rain, Reflection

July 29, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The reflection of an evening thunderhead on the surface of Mono Lake

During the past few days I was once again in the Sierra, camping just outside Yosemite’s Tioga Pass entrance and photographing in the surrounding areas. There is a lot to write about: the tremendous amount of snow still in the high country, the remarkable amounts of water everywhere, how odd it is to see all park campgrounds along Tioga Pass road still closed, the challenges of hiking in these conditions. I’ll save most of the details about those things for another post for now, except as they may relate to this photograph. After photographing elsewhere very early in the morning and then killing time in camp until about noon, I decided to hike into an east side canyon. It was a beautiful hike, though because I was alone and had not brought trekking poles, I eventually turned around soon than I had planned rather than risk solo crossings of high-water creeks. Coming back down from the hike I was surprised to see a thunderstorm brewing over the lower end of the canyon, and I quickly found a high overlook from which to watch the show. Before long the show became a bit too exciting! Heavy hail and rain developed — too much so for photography — and I high-tailed it down to Lee Vining.

As often happens, the convective action was mostly developing to the east of the Sierra crest, so I found a (not very secret!) location from which I could watch the evening light develop above Mono Lake. Multiple thunderstorms continued to develop right through the sunset, dropping rain on the high desert mountains and reflecting the evening light onto the surface of the lake.

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Oaks, Trail, Spring

March 15, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Old oak trees along a Northern California trail through spring grasslands

When people think of the landscape of California, many think of impressive and famous subjects: the redwoods, the Pacific Ocean coast, the High Sierra, perhaps the deserts. But those of us who live here know that one of the most characteristics is that of the oak grasslands. The sprawl along the low hills found all over the state and manage to climb up into mountains in many places — on both sides of the Central Valley, along the coastal hills, and more.

This tree and I go back perhaps twenty years, to when I first “discovered” this park just south of the main population centers of the San Francisco Bay Area. The specific location isn’t really important to anyone else, since you can find similar landscapes in many other places. But this tree is special to me. It sits along a trail that I have hiked many times, a steep but short one that takes me to the top of a bare hill and then down into a valley from which more distant trails branch out. I’ve photographed this sprawling oak throughout the year — summer, fall, winter and spring, in rain and fog and heat. This time I photographed on a late-winter California day that, as they sometimes do, felt more like spring.

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

Weathered Sandstone Wall

February 17, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A weathered and cracked sandstone wall in Utah canyon country

It has been about four-and-a-half years since I visited this spot and made this photograph, but I remember it distinctly. We had followed the twisting course of a small stream down a canyon as it wound back and forth between the tall sandstone walls. Eventually we perhaps began to think it was time to turn around, but it was hard to resist finding out what was around “one more bend” — until we had passed through quite a few more of them! I remember three things about this particular wall. It was huge — a monumental expanse of nearly solid granite broken in a few spots where giant flakes of rock had fallen. The stream passed right along the base of the wall. And there were odd circular patterns inscribed into its surface — so regular in shape that I first thought they must have been made by humans.

This spot is in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, a place that we might have believed to be safely protected for future generations. But these days, when America has been turned upside-down, things we took for granted are now threatened. And, yes, there are forces in the state of Utah that are working to take land out of this incredible monument and turn it over to extractive industries to dig it up and take out shale oil, uranium, and whatever else they can get their hands on. There are many things we can do about this. One very important step is to get the attention of the people of the state of Utah and remind them that one of their greatest assets is the beautiful system of parks, monuments, national forests, and other lands that draws visitors from all over the world — visitors who support a thriving tourism and recreation economy in the state. Since their legislators don’t seem to respond to reason or shame, perhaps they will respond to economic pressure. This week a consortium of outdoor manufacturers announced that they are moving their annual convention out of Utah. Lots of us are vowing to not visit the state until they stop trying to destroy it — and we won’t be staying in their motels, eating in their restaurants, buying gas there, or anything else.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: country

Lake and Mountain, Morning

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Evening Rain, Reflection

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Oaks, Trail, Spring

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Weathered Sandstone Wall

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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.