Tag Archives: creek

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

Aspen Color

October 22, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Colorful aspen trees near the peak of autumn color, eastern Sierra Nevada

Sometimes it is very difficult to find compositions among the many potential variations related to aspens — and then other times I just feel like pointing the camera at the wild colors and making an exposure. This grove moved me more in the direction of the latter approach! The grove itself is huge, stretching across a valley-bottom creek and then a good distance up a sub-alpine slope. The well watered trees near the bottom tend toward stocky vigor, while the upper reaches are populated by small, slender trees growing among boulders and talus fields.

I had visited this area twice during the previous two weeks, and on those visits I could tell that the color crescendo was coming. So by the time of this visit I was pretty certain that I would see good color and I wasn’t disappointed. The grove was in that wonderful state in which almost every possible aspen color appears at once. There were a few trees that were still solidly green, while others were completing the color change process and had already dropped many leaves. The trees in this photograph were somewhere in between, with spots of intense color ranging from yellow all the way to orange-red. But a few trees lagged behind, still quite green or just entering that telltale lime green phase that indicates that full color is not far away.

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

Aspen Grove, Yellow and Green

October 20, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The transition from green to yellow foliage in an eastern Sierra Nevada aspen grove

Aspen color is a more complex and fascinating thing than what if first seems — and that first impression is quite a strong one to begin with. The first thing most of us see when we learn about aspens is simply “brilliant color,” enhanced by the tree’s juxtaposition with other spectacular landscape elements and amplified when the trees are seen in vast and colorful groves. In fact, there are few things more astonishing than a huge grove of aspens at peak fall color, stretching up and across a sub-alpine landscape on a fall day.

Once you catch the aspen bug — and have seen quite a few of those vast and colorful groves — subtler things start to become interesting. There are too many elements to fully describe them all in this little post, but they include the patterns produced by the white trunks, almost regardless of leaf color. The color shadings are more varied than we first see — from the first lime-green hints of upcoming color change, through the spectrum of colors encompassing yellow and gold and red and orange and brown, and including the subtler effects of brown and black leaves late in the season. When I saw this vignette (within a much larger grove) my firs thought was perhaps “not quite at peak,” but I think that the combination of a few leaves just arriving at near-peak color against the background of leaves yet to change is pretty interesting, too, especially when the scene is cut through by those stark white trunks.

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 Grove

October 16, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Colorful autumn aspen trees ascend a hillside in Bishop Canyon, California

I love to photograph aspens in soft light, either very early in the morning or in the evening, when the trees are in shadow. This light enhances the colors of the trees and it fills in the shadows, creating an appearance that does not have the stark quality sometimes seen in midday sunlight aspen groves. I waited until the last hour or so of daylight to photograph this area, at which time the sun has already dropped behind the summits of the surrounding peaks.

This photograph takes in a small section of a much larger grove of colorful trees, at every stage from fully green to complete bare. I sometimes like to simply stand for a bit in front of such a grove, staring at the colors and patterns and trying to find small sections that might make a composition. Here I think I was first attracted to the bright leaves on the small trees near the top, but soon I saw the diagonal arrangement of the rows of trees. Each row has its own character. That primary row near the upper part of the frame is at its color peak, but in front of it there is another row of trees that seems to be going more quickly from green to bare. In the background there is a line of much larger trees, with their tall and straight white trunks.

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

Eastern Sierra Pack Station, Fall Colors

October 14, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn cottonwood and willow color at the McGee Creek pack station at the base of McGee Canyon

These eastern Sierra Nevada canyons have long fascinated me. My initial orientation to the range came from decades of approaching the mountains from the west, where they rise gradually, beginning almost imperceptibly with small irregularities and hills far out in the eastern portions of the Great Central Valley and then build slowly over many miles to eventually reach the Sierra crest. I “discovered” the east side of the range decades later, and was amazed by the contrast. Rather than beginning in the gentle west side grassland and agricultural areas, the base of the east side is frequently high desert, a spare and dry land of sage and open vistas. The Sierra begins abruptly, and in some cases you can stand at the actual base of the escarpment and look almost straight up to peaks that are many thousands of feet above you. The east side is cut by many short but deep canyons, where steep creeks drain a terrain originally cut by glaciers. In a very short distance — often traversed in a single day — one can move from high desert to the alpine zone.

In addition to focusing on that landscape, this photograph includes an element representing another component of life on the east side, a trailhead pack station. Here, too, my experience was such that I only recognized the role of these outfits more recently. For decades I was primarily oriented to the range as a backpacker and, to be honest, I regarded those using pack animals as representing an intrusion in the wilderness experience that I sought. (On the other hand, I recall many years ago seeing the occasional individual backpacker leading a single donkey along the trail, something you almost never see any more.) A few years ago I began to work with photographic colleagues who use pack trains once each year to get into the back country to photograph in ways that are more or less impossible when traveling on foot, and before long I had my first real experience with packers. I’m less certain of my old disdain for those who rely on pack animals, and I’m now much more aware of the long history of these pack outfits in the eastern Sierra. My perspective has changed. While I think that their place must evolve, I also have come to think of them as an intrinsic part of what makes the Sierra the Sierra, and I have acquired a real respect for the wranglers and the work they do.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: creek

Aspen Color

Aspen Grove, Yellow and Green

Hillside Aspen Grove

Eastern Sierra Pack Station, Fall Colors

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