Tag Archives: dome

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

Trees, Crack System

December 15, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A group of small trees find a marginal existence growing along a crack at the edge of an exfoliated slab of granite, Yosemite National Park

It took me three tries, on successive days, to finally get the photograph of this little bit of granite slab and trees that I was looking for. On evening of our first day camping in the vicinity we were under the thick smoke plume from the early September “Meadow” fire in Yosemite, which was burning some miles away in the Little Yosemite Valley area — but also sending dense smoke towards us and dropping ash from the sky. I did make a few photographs in this eerie light the first night, but it was a very tricky situation that did not work well for this subject. I went back on the second evening, when the smoke had diminished at our location to the point that it wasn’t a major factor in “intimate landscape” photographs like this one. I went to the top of a large granite bowl before the light was good and scouted for likely photographs to make as the evening light improved. I spotted this lengthy crack at the edge of an exfoliated granite slab, in which a number of small trees had taken tenuous root and decided that it could be an interesting subject with evening sidelight. I wasn’t the only one, however, and three members of our party had the same idea! We are a cooperative bunch, so I photographed some other things while my partners worked this spot, and then returned to set up a shot that looked more directly up the length of the crack that curves through the composition in this version. Later that evening I was quickly reviewing my shots from the day, and I realized that one of my buddies had cast a long shadow into part of the frame! Ah, well, such things happen.

So I made plans to go back yet again on our final evening in the area and try once more. In the end, I’m glad that I did. I’m now convinced that by going back I found a more interesting composition that accomplished several things. First, no one’s shadow is in the image! Second, I think that positioning the large crack so that it curves more diagonally through the frame works better than my original composition. Third, due to this different camera position and somewhat different light, I was able to let the shadow of the tree create a sort of mirror image of its form, resulting in a relationship between the tree and the shadow that I like. There are spots much like this one all over the place in Yosemite — smooth slabs of granite on which tiny but often mature trees manage to find just enough sustenance. In this little spot, a somewhat unusual number of these trees seem to have made a success of it.

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

Tree, Canyon, Wildfire Haze

October 9, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Smoke from the 2014 Meadow fire colors late afternoon light on a tree and granite canyon in the Yosemite backcountry.

After a number of days spent photographing at a higher elevation location, our group descended into one of the great river canyons of the Yosemite backcountry, where we made camp for the final days of our 10-day photographic trip. This change gave us the opportunity to shoot a number of subjects that were quite different from those that we concentrated on at the earlier location, and it also let us revisit some locations and subjects that we had all photographed in the past. While some might wonder at the notion of revisiting a place when so many new places remain unexplored, there is something special about returning to a place and learning its patterns more deeply.

On this afternoon I ascended a nearby granite ridge, from which there is a wonderful view down this river canyon as it descends toward California’s Central Valley. As is typical at this time of year in the Sierra — though a bit more prevalent than usual in this drought year — the haze, smell, and coloration of wildfire smoke was in the air. In this photograph, the smoke and the late hour produced an unusual coloration in this scene as I shot through the trunk and branches of a large tree on the ridge.

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

Glacial Erratics, Cathedral Range

October 8, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Sunset light on glacial erratics, domes, and the Cathedral Range

The first time I ascended this system of granite slabs to its high point was in the morning, and my goal was to shoot the opposite direction from the scene shown here, so that I could capture the backlight on trees ascending from the ridge toward a higher valley to the east. While up here it became apparent that this spot had potential beyond just that of trees in morning light, and I made several more visits during out stay here.

On this evening I thought I would find out what late-day light possibilities might exist. My initial idea was to arrive soon enough to shoot down the slabs into an open forest of lodgepole pines that seemed like it might catch evening backlight in interesting ways. I arrived at a spot from which I thought such a shot was possible, but it seemed a bit too early for ideal light, and I continued on up the granite rib to a higher point. The atmosphere and light were a bit tricky. At this time of year it is very common to see a bit of wildfire smoke in the air, and that was the case on this evening. In addition, there were some high clouds far to the west and seemed likely to mute the last light. In fact, just as I initially set up this shot the light quickly faded, as if someone had turned down the dimmer switch on a lighting system! At first I was disappointed, but when I looked to the west to see the clouds that blocked the light I could see that there was a gap below the clouds through which the sun would likely shine once more before sunset. So I waited. Perhaps five or ten minutes later the light began to change silently (somehow it always seems a bit odd that only the light changes at those moments) and I managed to shoot through the transition from dark to full light and make one exposure when the light had come back on both the near features and the distant ridge.

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

Last Light, Yosemite Backcountry

October 2, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Final evening light on the face of a granite dome in the Yosemite National Park backcountry

As I have mentioned previously while sharing this set of photographs from my early September Yosemite backcountry photography, the particular ridge from which I made this photograph drew me back repeatedly. I climbed it to photograph in the early morning and late in the evening, and in conditions ranging from clear to hazy to scattered clouds. While the larger scene might be regarded as “typical Sierra,” it was possible to juxtapose and pick out all sorts of interesting elements, and the changing light transformed this landscape in surprisingly striking ways.

This was a particularly beautiful evening, and the light and landscape offered up many possibilities over the time I was there — from very late afternoon right on past the sunset. This was one of my final exposures of the evening, and the very last beams of red sunset light were coming up the canyon from the west after passing through a lot of low-level atmospheric haze in order to softly illuminate the edges of the granite slopes along the top of the near ridge as the rest of the scene was already falling into “blue hour” light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: dome

Trees, Crack System

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Tree, Canyon, Wildfire Haze

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Glacial Erratics, Cathedral Range

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Last Light, Yosemite Backcountry

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

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