Tag Archives: creek

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Grove, Morning Light – North Lake

3 Comments
Aspen Grove, Morning Light - North Lake

Aspen Grove, Morning Light – North Lake. Sierra Nevada, California. October 5, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light filters through yellow and golden leaves to light and color the forest floor beneath an aspen grove at North Lake, California.

These aspen trees are in the roadside grove near the “tree tunnel” at North Lake, in the Sierra Nevada above Bishop, California. After shooting the “big views” around North Lake that include the surrounding peaks, I walked back to this accessible grove and spent some significant time walking slowly among these trees, looking for interesting compositions. One feature that drew me to this image was the softly colored light shining through the canopy of colorful leaves and gently illuminating the sides of the aspen trunks; the light forms of the trunks themselves also interested me.

keywords: aspen, grove, tree, trunk, branch, floor, forest, leaf, twig golden, yellow, white, north lake, sierra, nevada, mountains, morning, light, bishop, creek, landscape, nature, scenic, nature, california, usa, fall, autumn, season, stock

Commentary, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Cascade in Lee Vining Canyon, Autumn Snow (black and white)

Leave a comment
Cascade in Lee Vining Canyon, Autumn Snow (black and white)

Cascade in Lee Vining Canyon, Autumn Snow (black and white). Sierra Nevada, California. October 12, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Cascade on Lee Vining Creek on an autumn afternoon following an early snowfall.

I’ll make the text short this time since yesterday’s post included the same photo – and the backstory – in color. So this is a black and white version of the same photograph from Lee Vining Canyon. I thought I’d try this since a) there wasn’t really a lot of color in the scene and b) the “cold” effect of the scene seems to work fairly well either way.

keywords: lee vining, creek, canyon, cascade, water, fall, waterfall, blur, motion, forest, ice, snow, fall, autumn, fall, october, cold, tree, bush, rock, boulder, log, scenic, travel, landscape, stock, california, usa, sierra, nevada, tioga, pass, yosemite, national park, black and white

Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Cascade in Lee Vining Canyon, Autumn Snow

1 Comment
Cascade in Lee Vining Canyon, Autumn Snow

Cascade in Lee Vining Canyon, Autumn Snow. Sierra Nevada, California. October 12, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Cascade on Lee Vining Creek on an autumn afternoon following an early snowfall.

On my second trip to the eastern Sierra this fall – a much less successful trip than the first one a week earlier – I visited Lee Vining Canyon in the late afternoon, after the sun had retreated behind the very high peaks around Tioga Pass, leaving the bottom of the canyon in shadow. My last stop in the canyon was at this well-known cascade near the Bend campground. I did several long exposures of the cascade so that the water would diffuse. As you can see, the fall foliage here was less spectacular than in some other years, but the recent snow on the branches and the creek bank along with the frozen water under the overhang at the upper right created a wintery quality in the scene.

keywords: lee vining, creek, canyon, cascade, water, fall, waterfall, blur, motion, forest, ice, snow, fall, autumn, fall, october, cold, tree, bush, rock, boulder, log, scenic, travel, landscape, stock, california, usa, sierra, nevada, tioga, pass, yosemite, national park

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Grove, South Fork Bishop Creek

3 Comments
Aspen Grove, South Fork Bishop Creek

Aspen Grove, South Fork Bishop Creek. Sierra Nevada, California. October 4, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Slender aspen trunks topped with golden autumn leaves near the South Fork of Bishop Creek.

This beautiful grove of slender-trunk aspens with only a few leaves left in their crowns was a lucky find. In the evening I went out looking for groves that were in the shadow of the high peaks of the valley below South Lake. I ended up on a small one-lane gravel road that didn’t seem to be getting too many visitors besides me. I found this grove near the end of this road just before it rejoined the main paved roadway, and just as the fading light provided saturated colors in the trees’ crowns to provide contrast with the paper white color of their trunks. (There is quite a bit of fine detail in this photograph that isn’t visible in the small jpg image posted here.)

keywords: aspen, tree, grove, trunk, white, leaves, yellow, gold, boulders, rocks, branch, bishop, creek, south, fork, south lake, california, usa, sierra, nevada, range, mountains, fall, autumn, color, scenic, travel, stock, nature