Tag Archives: curve

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Late Season Subalpine Meadow and Creek

December 9, 2009 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

A dry creekbed meanders through a boulder-filled golden late-season Sierra Nevada meadow at sunset near Evelyn Lake, Yosemite National Park, California.

This is another view of the “backyard” of my solo-backpacking camp site near Evelyn Lake back in early September of this year. Dusk has fallen across the meadow and the twisting creekbed leading to the lake, but a bit of alpenglow lingers on the clouds beyond the tree-lined ridge.

This photograph is evidence of the early onset of “fall” in the high country. Although the equinox was still nearly two weeks away, the plants here had lost their summer appearance – the meadow was almost entirely brown or golden and the small creek, which would contribute to the flooding of this lakeside meadow earlier in the season had already stopped flowing.

(By starting my “fall” season in late summer in the high country I can manage to experience fall colors for at least three months every year!. I often see the first hints of the change in the highest country even earlier than the date of this photograph. Then by late September and early October the Sierra aspen color show is in full swing. By the end of the month I can find great colors at lower elevations on the west side of the range, such as in Yosemite Valley. After that the colors continue to develop through November in the coastal areas of central and northern California, and here in the SF Bay Area there are still a lot of fall colors to be seen.)

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: dry, brown, golden, creek, bed, meander, curve, twist, boulder, rock, filled, late, season, summer, autumn, fall, meadow, sub, alpine, brush, bush, plant, flora, foliage, sierra, nevada, mountain, range, sunset, dusk, evelyn, lake, backpack, camp, hike, wilderness, nature, landscape, sky, forest, grove, yosemite, national, park, california, usa, cloud, pink, stock

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Autumn Black Oak Leaves and Branches, Sky

November 14, 2009 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Autumn black oak branches and leaves silhouetted against blue sky, Yosemite Valley, California.

Believe it or not, one of the difficult things about photographing in the Sierra Nevada is… the weather is too nice! Sometimes for weeks on end it seems that you might see only perfect blue skies… boring perfect blue skies! When I visited Yosemite around Halloween this year to photograph fall color in the Valley I was really hoping for the same sort of “awful” weather I had last year – two days of rain and mist and clouds. Instead I got weather that seemed more like late summer than autumn.

So, what the heck, if the shapes and colors of the Valley’s oaks appear overhead with the “perfect blue sky” as a backdrop perhaps I’m supposed to photograph them against the perfect blue sky. All joking aside, I was attracted to the intense and saturated of the color of the sparse leaves on this tree, made all the more intense by the sun shining through their translucent shapes from behind and the almost monochrome shapes of the branches, and contrasted with the deep blue of the sky.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: yosemite, national, park, valley, sierra, nevada, mountain, range, autumn, fall, season, scenic, travel, nature, landscape, california, blue, sky, black, oak, tree, branches, leaf, leaves, form, curve, gold, brown, yellow, silhouette, stock

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Late-Season Corn Lilies and White Flowers

September 18, 2009 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Golden late-season corn lily plants at Half Moon Meadow, Yosemite National Park, California.

The summer goes so quickly in the High Sierra! It was barely a month ago that I was in the Young Lakes region for a few days and the wildflowers were just starting to come into form, and only a couple weeks ago when I encountered peak condition wildflowers above 10,000′ in the upper Sabrina Basin. While you can still find wildflowers – including in this photograph! – if you know where to look in the Sierra, the signs of the coming autumn are beginning to appear throughout the high country, as they do every year at about this time.

Every year, there seems to be a day during the second half of August when I’m in the Sierra and I get a very clear and distinct impression of a change. In many cases I’m hard pressed to identify exactly what it is, but I know it is there. It might be something about the changing angle and quality of the light. Sometimes I think changing air movement and wind patterns may play a part. Perhaps it is the end of the lush moisture from melting snow. In other cases it is more obvious – like when I begin to see these late-season corn lily plants begin their transition: first they are thick and green; then a bit of brown begins to appear at the tips of the leaves; soon the veined pattern of the leaves begins to pick up brown and yellow streaks; before long some of the plants turn wild yellow and gold colors and their stems begin to weaken; and in a short time they fall over and taken on the texture and color of old corn stalks.

I photographed these brightly colored leaves at the edge of Half Moon Meadow in Yosemite during the last week of August while on a three-day pack trip into the Ten Lakes Basin.

(If anyone can identify the small white flowers in this photo I would be very grateful. And, no, the flowers are not growing from the bright yellow corn lily plants! 10/11/09 – I think we have a winner. It looks like it might be a plant called gray’s lovage.)

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

Photographs: Nature

Detail, Summer Grasses

August 22, 2009 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Close-up photograph of summer grasses growing at Castillero Pond, California.

A second photo in the sequence I made on this morning at Castillero Pond in the Calero Hills oak/grassland in northern California. (The terrain and plants are typical of vast areas of central California as well.) These large grasses were growing along the edge of the pond. Unlike most of the grasses, which by now have gone completely dry in California, there were still mostly green since they had the pond as a source of moisture.

I made what might strike some as an odd lens choice for this series. Virtually all of them were shot with a 100-400mm zoom at 400mm. The idea was to get a very narrow depth of field and then throw both foreground and background way out of focus. Sometimes people think that the only way to do this is by using lenses with very large aperture, but an equally (and in some cases more) effective method is to use a very long focal length. This can provide even nicer bokeh than the large aperture approach in many cases.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Web: G Dan Mitchell Photography
Twitter: http://twitter.com/gdanmitchell
Friendfeed: http://friendfeed.com/gdanmitchell
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/gdanmitchell

keywords: calero, hills, santa clara, county, park, morning, summer, grass, flora, pond, castillero, plant, nature, california, usa, macro, close-up, stem, twig, blade, green, brown, yellow, shadow, bokeh, dense, texture, curve, pattern, dry, stock

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