Tag Archives: dense

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Forest in Afternoon Light

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Forest in Afternoon Light
Forest in Afternoon Light

Forest in Afternoon Light. North Coast, California. October 29, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A dense forest backlit by afternoon light along the Northern California coast.

If you follow my blog, you know that I frequently photograph all around the Sierra, in the deserts east and south of the range, in coastal California in the San Francisco Bay Area and south, and even in the Central Valley. I’m almost a bit embarrassed, however, to admit to barely having scratched the surface of the photographic opportunities of “real” northern California, along the coast or inland. While I frequently shoot north of San Francisco, most of this work has been done no farther north than about Point Reyes.

This past weekend my wife and I managed a quick getaway that took us up to and slightly beyond Mendocino, where we spent a couple of nights. This wasn’t meant to be a photographic excursion, but I have a very understanding wife! She did not object when I stopped from time to time on our drive to get out the camera gear and make a few photographs. Truth be told, she made a few herself! I tried to keep the photography under control – after all, this trip was more about relaxing, seeing the sights, enjoying some good food, and so forth – but I did stop a few times make some photographs. And I also realized that I really need to head back up into this area and begin to seriously explore this region that is right at my virtual doorstep, and which is in many ways quite different from the “other Californias” that I’ve become familiar with.

This photograph was made in an extensive deciduous forest in a more or less random spot along the road, north of Fort Bragg and in an area where highway 1 takes an inland jog.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Dense Aspen Grove, Bishop Creek

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Dense Aspen Grove, Bishop Creek
Dense Aspen Grove, Bishop Creek

Dense Aspen Grove, Bishop Creek. Sierra Nevada, California. October 15, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Soft light filters through the canopy of a dense aspen grove near Bishop Creek, California.

I think that these dense aspen forest scenes ended up being something of a theme for me this fall. In this one I tried to find as dense an example of aspen forest as I could locate and then to make a photograph that may perhaps evoke the combination of diffused light coming down through the depleted canopy of yellow leaves and the very tightly packed trees. The trees in this grove are relatively small and closely packed – so close, in fact, that in places it is very hard to move among them. I used an ultra-wide lens to try to both bring as much of this detail into the frame and to let me work very close to the nearest trees. The closest tree is probably no more than about a foot from the camera.

Working in such close quarters, very small changes in camera position end up having large effects on the composition. In the end I found myself repositioning the camera and tripod by fractions of an inch from side to side. Although it isn’t easy to see in this small jpg version, the complex detail of branches and leaves eventually recedes into the distance near the far edge of the grove and the grove becomes a bit lighter along that farthest fringe.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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.

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: Sierra Nevada

Burned Forest, Evening

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Burned Forest, Evening
Burned Forest, Evening

Burned Forest, Evening. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. August 20, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening light on an eastern Sierra Nevada forest recovering from a recent wildfire.

This spot is in Mono County along highway 395 not far from June Lake, and it is a spot that I’ve had my eyes on for some time. As a person who was brought up in the “Smokey the Bear” era, when wildfires were thought to be entirely a bad thing, it took me a while to come to terms with the knowledge that such fires are a natural and necessary element. I understood this logically before I understood it aesthetically, and I struggled for some time with the idea that places where fires have occurred can be seen as sites of rebirth rather than as destruction and desolation.

I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity and the right light to photograph this burn area for a couple of years now. I pass by fairly often, but it has always been at the wrong time of day or at a time when I could not afford to stop. However, as is often the, unexpected coincidences caused me to be here just before sunset as the light turned golden in mid-August. Ironically, part of the cause was… a forest fire in Yosemite! Up in the Tuolumne area, the afternoon air had turned smokey and the light had taken on the sort of brownish color that forest fire smoke can create. This light was not inspiring me, so I thought that I’d drive over the pass and head south a short distance on highway 395 to see if I could find more interesting lighting. As I traveled south from Lee Vining I happened to notice the turn-off for West Portal Road, which heads out in the general direction of Mono Craters. I took this road and spent some time poking around, eventually making a few exposures in the area called Aeolian Buttes, and then returned to the main highway a bit south of where I had originally left the road.

As it happened, this choice dropped me onto 395 at a place where I could see this burned area just a bit further down the road. The sun was not far from dropping behind the Sierra crest, so I figured this could be my chance to give it a try. I found a spot where the late afternoon light was warming the color of the summer-dried grasses and some white flowers grew among the burned trees, and I had perhaps 15 minutes to work before the sun dropped behind the peaks.

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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