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Headlands, Surf, Natural Bridge

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Headlands. Surf, Natural Bridge
Storm surf raises spray among rocky headlands along the Big Sur coast

Headlands, Surf, Natural Bridge. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Storm surf raises spray among rocky headlands along the Big Sur coast

This is a scene that is very familiar to me at this point, though it is never exactly the same twice. Even when I try to resist the urge to rephotograph the familiar scene, I almost always end up stopping at least briefly. One reason is that I recall fondly the serendipitous story of the first time I photographed there. I had gone somewhere else initially, but it was too early for that location so I decided to go somewhere else before returning. I made a more or less random decision to head south — I think that a right turn was easier than a left — and headed down the coast to discover, to my surprise, that the surf was raising a cloud of spray along the shoreline. I happened to stop at this spot and I happened to have a new lens, without which the particular photograph would not have been possible.

Above, a mentioned that this location is never the same twice. I’ve been there in every season, during storms and fog and clearly, sunlit days. On the occasion when I made the photograph seen here it was rather nice weather, but the sea was angry, with swells of up to forty feet rolling onto the rocks and headlands, raising fog of ocean spray that was backlit by the low angle, late-autumn sun. I timed this exposure to be just after a big set of waves, and while the surf had calmed a bit the spray still filled the air.

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

Aspen Color

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Aspen Color
Colorful autumn aspen trees in the Eastern Sierra Nevada

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

Colorful autumn aspen trees in the Eastern Sierra Nevada

On the surface, at least, this is a very simple photograph… so it gets a simple title: Aspen Color. The trees are part of a large (and both popular and accessible) grove in the Eastern Sierra Nevada. Like so many others, I stop here each autumn, and I’ve spent a lot of time staring at the trees rising from a creek to far up the surrounding slopes, almost committing to memory the general scene and many of its details. While many Sierra Nevada aspen trees tend to be short and somewhat twisted, at least by comparison to those familiar groves to Colorado trees standing straight and tall, in places in the Sierra you can find those big, stout, and tall trees. This grove is one of those places, though there are plenty of the smaller trees mixed in, too.

On the day I made this photograph the colors in the larger grove varied from deep green to extremely bright yellow/gold, with a few bits of red-orange visible here and there. The latter colors first caught my attention in the spot shown in the photograph. The reddish color was subtle and only in a small area, but it was the starting point for the idea of the photograph. It is hard to make some sort of order out of such complex detail, but the idea was to place a complete tree along the left side of the frame, put that bit of red-orange at lower right, and to include some of the leaves that had not yet lost their green tint.

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

Hillside Aspen Color

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Hillside Aspen Color
A grove of colorful autumn aspen trees on a hillside shared with brush and conifers

Hillside Aspen Color. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A grove of colorful autumn aspen trees on a hillside shared with brush and conifers

This little grove of slender aspens is high on a rocky hillside. It is a grove that I know pretty well, having watched it for many seasons while photographing more accessible aspens nearby. I’ve been attracted to its position, high on the southern slopes of this valley, in a position to catch early sun coming over the higher ridge top. Usually, by the time the other nearby trees that are my primary target are in full color, these trees have dropped many of their leaves. But this season seemed slightly unusual in one way — in such places it has been common to find isolated groups of still-colorful trees that usually drop leaves by this time.

Making this photograph required the use of a type of lens that not every landscape photographer considers using, namely a rather long telephoto — this particular lens is a 100-400mm zoom, which provides quite a narrow angle-of-view on a full frame camera. There are lots of things that often appeal to me about using longer focal lengths for landscape photography, but in this case it was a pretty practical matter: the trees were at a great distance and there was no realistic way to move closer!

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 |
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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

Yellow Trees, Red Brush

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Yellow Trees, Red Brush
A few yellow aspen trees, surrounded by red undergrowth, cling to a rocky face

Yellow Trees, Red Brush. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A few yellow aspen trees, surrounded by red undergrowth, cling to a rocky face

I’m far from the first person to photograph this little group of trees, backed by a rough granite and standing among smaller plants that turn a deep reddish color in the fall. Given that these trees are just a few of many thousands standing near this spot, it still surprises me to see them photographed — and recognizable! — among so many other trees. They aren’t hard to see, but they aren’t exactly obvious either, and there are a few factors that might lead to them being passed without stopping.

If anything, it is probably the short, reddish undergrowth that contributes to their visibility — there are trees like these all over the Sierra, but most are not set against rocks and the red plants like this. I photographed the little scene when the area was in shadow — often my favorite light for aspen photography. This light is softer and it tends to fill the shadows, making the effect less stark.

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.