Tag Archives: detail

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

Juniper Tree Trunk, Detail

August 13, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The heavily weathered and contorted trunk of juniper trees near Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park.

These Sierra juniper trees grow in the most improbable places – on top of granite domes and slabs, with roots somehow finding sustenance in cracks and bits of gravel, and no doubt exposed to the full force of mountain storms. This is actually a group of trees that take advantage of the same crack in the otherwise solid granite, and which have grown together into what almost appears to be one very wide tree at first.

Because of their toughness, the way they grow almost into the rock, and the fact that the trees continue to live even when portions have died, it sometimes seems to me that these trees can have a character that is closer to that of the rock itself than just about any other living thing in the Sierra. The oldest branches and roots grow into the rock and have been shaped so much by their relationship to it that they can almost take on a rock-like character themselves.

These particular specimens happen to be growing part way up a dome-like granite slab above Tioga Pass Road as it passes through Yosemite’s high country. It appears that part of the treed may have been affected by fire, and dead sections have been worn and eroded by the tough sub-alpine environment. The only obvious signs of life in this close up image are the bits of moss or lichen growing in a few cracks in the wood.

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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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Textures

Eroded Sandstone, Point Lobos

March 29, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 5 Comments

Patterns in eroded shoreline sandstone rocks at the Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

The rugged Point Lobos shoreline in places exposes some very interesting rocks, including sections like this one where layers of different colored sand stone are gradually worn away, revealing underlying layers of different colors and textures and sometimes exposing surprising color contrasts. On days when the light is very soft (or very boring!) I may seek out some of these rocks and photograph them since the softer light lets details appear that might easily be washed out in harsher light.

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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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Detail, Overlapping Gullies – Zabriskie Point

March 23, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Detail photograph of the patterns of overlapping gullies near Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park.

I have been working on a sort of informal project to photograph small details at Zabriskie Point that do not necessarily reveal the larger, familiar, and very iconic landscape of the place. A few years ago I noticed – almost by accident – that certain features of the surrounding landscape can be photographed in conditions quite different from the “standard” dawn and very early morning lighting. In fact, some of the geology can, I think, be photographed in interesting ways even during unusual times of the day when there is full sunlight. A bit later in the morning the light, which tends to glance across the tops of some features earlier in the day, begins to penetrate down into the little valleys and gullies and reflect into them from some of the brighter surfaces. While it can work in full sun, it may work even better when there is a bit of overcast, as there was when I made this photograph and a couple others in the series.

With this specific subject I also tend to work from a bit of a distance using long focal length lenses. This one was shot at 400mm! This poses a problem that we don’t encounter as often when using more (supposedly) typical landscape focal lengths, namely that it is hard to get the whole subject in focus due to depth of field issues that become more apparent with such long lenses.

Also, when photographing these rather pale and pastel formations, it is very easy to succumb to the temptation to jazz things up a bit. To be honest, I have seen some very good and interesting work that relied on amplifying contrast and the subtle colors. However, I’m trying hard to not go too far with this. I certainly do some work in post to balance things out a bit and to get the effect that I think best evokes what I recall of the scene, but I’m avoiding the inclination to, for example, adjust curves to the point that I get a lot of pure blacks and whites in this subject that mostly contains bright mid-tones.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Red and Orange Aspen Leaves

October 24, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Intensely colorful red and orange autumn aspen leaves in the eastern Sierra Nevada.

Late in the day on this rainy eastern Sierra fall day I headed for a small dirt side road that I know of in the Bishop Creek drainage. Along this road are a few special aspen groves that I have photographed in the past, including one with very slender trees and sometimes fiery colors. This time I was there a bit earlier than in the past and, ironically, the leaves on these trees were so thick that they didn’t lend themselves to the photograph I had in mind. I did make a few photograph of these trees – one of which will likely appear here before long – but then I decided to try something other than what originally brought me to this spot.

I put the 135mm f/2 lens on the camera – perhaps not a typical landscape lens, but quite nice for shooting close images of leaves and creating soft background blur – and went hunting for small groups of leaves with appropriate backgrounds. Because it was late in the day and in an area where the sun drops behind ridges fairly early and overcast and raining intermittently, the light was really interesting. While this light can mute some colors, it also fills in the shadows a bit and can intensify the colors of bright subjects like the aspen leaves.

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.

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