Tag Archives: creek

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Thicket, Bishop Creek

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Aspen Thicket, Bishop Creek
Aspen Thicket, Bishop Creek

Aspen Thicket, Bishop Creek. Near South Lake, California. October 15, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Bright yellow autumn leaves festoon a dense aspen thicket along Bishop Creek near South Lake, California.

At the right point during the aspen season there are so many potential photographic “targets” that it can be almost overwhelming. In this general area along the south fork or Bishop Creek, there were many stands of aspens that were at or just past their color peak. I knew of this row of trees that follows the course of the stream and which is accessible by way of a short gravel road that takes off from the main road – I had photographed them in slightly less interesting conditions last year. This particular little loop road has a number of potential aspen subjects, but this year when I arrived it seemed like the most interesting trees were in this spot near where the side road starts.

I’m intrigued by densely packed trees, so dense that the white trunks, yellow leaves, and the various sized branches can grow together and almost completely fill the space within the grove. This little thicket seemed about as close to exactly what I was looking for as anything else I saw along those lines this year. By shooting at an angle across the line of trees, the light hit their trunks from the left side of the frame, and the depth of the grove was accentuated just a bit. With so much detail to work with it can be a bit hard to find a composition that isn’t overwhelmed by the sheer amount of detail, so here I looked for a section of the grove where the closely spaced white trunks gave some shape and direction to the scene.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Desert Pond and Sierra Nevada Dawn

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Desert Pond and Sierra Nevada Dawn
Morning mist rises above a high desert pond reflecting the lower slopes of the eastern Sierra Nevada near McGee Creek.

Desert Pond and Sierra Nevada Dawn. Owens Valley, California. October 9, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning mist rises above a high desert pond reflecting the lower slopes of the eastern Sierra Nevada near McGee Creek.

On the second morning of my first fall color to the eastern Sierra this autumn, having been less than astonished by this year’s color so far, I decided to head instead out into Owens Valley to shoot back toward the mountains and to shoot some subject in Owens Valley itself. I started at this little lake a few miles east of highway 395, where great reflections of the range lit by morning sun area often seen. This photograph looks across the small lake towards McGee Creek Canyon. (McGee Creek isn’t a bad place to look for aspen color…)

I arrived here before sunrise and was set up and ready to go before the first light hit the peaks in the area of Mt. McGee and Mt. Morgan. As I stood (freezing!) by the shore of this small lake, waiting for the light that I knew was coming, a truck came up the lonely road to this place, passed the pond, made a u-turn, and slowed down by my vehicle, which was parked along the main road. My first thoughts were “this is either another photographer or someone who is checking out my car… for purposes I don’t want to think about.” However the vehicle kept going. A few moments later I discovered that this was a photographer, and he and his dog took up a position along the far shoreline. A few days later I was looking through an online landscape photography forum and I came across a photograph that looked like it had been shot from about that photographer’s position, and in which the conditions looked darn near identical to what I saw that morning. I contacted the photographer and found out that, indeed, he was the person I had seen that morning. (If you wonder why we didn’t touch base on the scene… a) we were both busy shooting the entire time, b) we were on opposites sides of the lake, and c) even though I yelled a greeting he didn’t hear.)

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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Owens Valley

Ranch and Morning Fog, Owens Valley

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Ranch and Morning Fog, Owens Valley
Ranch and Morning Fog, Owens Valley

Ranch and Morning Fog, Owens Valley. Owens Valley, California. October 9, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

As is often the case, there is a story behind this photograph – an image that I think is fairly atypical of my work, at least as to the subject.

A year ago, almost to the day, I was also in the eastern Sierra to photograph aspens. And on that day I got up very early at my lodging in Mammoth and headed out before sunrise, which it was still dark actually, without a fixed idea of where or what I was going to photograph. I reached highway 395 and headed south, with a vague idea of heading up one of the promising canyons such as that of McGee or perhaps Rock Creek. But very soon I saw fog out in Owens Valley above Crowley Lake and I started thinking of instead heading away from the Sierra and out into that Valley. I ended up at a small pond from which I photographed the light from the rising sun as it hit the eastern slopes of the Sierra.

That show was over fairly quickly, so I decided to explore a bit. I had noticed mist and fog in various places in the surrounding area. Some of it seemed to come from small hot springs while in other places it seemed to extensive for that. I picked, more or less randomly, some gravel roads that headed toward the foggy areas and ended up on Hot Creek, where I made several photographs of and through the fog rising from the water.

Fast forward to this year. The first day of aspen shooting was productive, but the colors were overall not really as spectacular as I had hoped. If the intended subject “isn’t happening,” I’ll often change course and look for something else. So, once again I woke up without an aspen photography plan, but with two other vague ideas in mind. One was to go up to Minaret Summit and photograph the first light on the Minarets and Ritter and Banner Peaks. The other was to drive south again on 395 to see what would happen. When I got in my car to head out I still literally did not know where I would go. I sat in the car a moment and then, for reasons that I can’t recall, picked the 395 option. (Later I realized that the other option could have been productive, too.) I headed south on 395 and was astonished to see – again! – the fog over Crowley and the mist rising out in Owens Valley. So I went to my little lake to shoot there first and then headed out to where I had shot Hot Creek last year, but this time I kept going. At one point I passed this small range while heading out but couldn’t see a shot. Later on my return trip I passed it again, and this time I saw the stock grazing in the frozen meadow next to this small creek, with mist and fog rising everywhere. I stopped.

(By the way, this is a color photograph…)

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Fallen Aspen Branch, Snow

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Fallen Aspen Branch, Snow
Fallen Aspen Branch, Snow

Fallen Aspen Branch, Snow. Sierra Nevada, California. October 8, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A small aspen tree branch blown down by an early fall storm rests on snow, North Lake, California.

Time to share aspen photos again! Each fall when the aspens change colors I head to the eastern Sierra to go aspen hunting! I made my first foray of the season this past weekend. I visited a number of the usual places – Bishop Creek, McGee Creek, Rock Creek, and Lee Vining Canyon. I’ve come to think that every aspen color season has a personality, defined by how and when and with what intensity the color appears, along with the related issues of the changing weather.

This year I think (from what I’ve heard) that the higher elevation trees were just changing colors about a week ago… before a strong early season storm came across the Sierra, dropping temperatures and quite a bit of snow. Over the weekend I saw up to about one foot of snow in places, which is an unusual amount for so early in the season. The aspen color was not exactly astonishing, and I think that the weather may be at least partially to blame. It seems that many of the mature colorful leaves were knocked down by the storm, and others that might now be colorful instead turned black and brown. While there was some interesting color, in many places I saw trees with leaves missing or trees that were almost fully still green.

The good news to take away from this is that since the lower elevation trees are still very green, there should be some fine aspen color very soon.

But I’ve often thought that a single leaf can be enough to make a photograph, and sometimes the single leaf can make a more effective image than a huge, colorful grove spanning many acres. So when I find that the color isn’t what I expected, one response is simply to look harder. As I walked along the road that passes North Lake, many of the subjects that I might have expected to photograph were nowhere to be seen. There were not large, spectacularly colorful trees. There was quite a bit of snow on the ground. So I looked harder… and one of the subjects I noticed was this single, small branch full of intensely colorful leaves lying on the snow.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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