Tag Archives: drainage

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Across The Tuolumne

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Across The Tuolumne
Looking across the canyon of the Tuolumne River toward the Cathedral Range, evening.

Across The Tuolumne. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Looking across the canyon of the Tuolumne River toward the Cathedral Range, evening.

This is the second in a sort of sequence of three photographs made one after the other on a late summer evening as I approached, topped, and descended from a high overlook in the Yosemite backcountry. The specific terrain of this area high in the Tuolumne River drainage lends itself to such views. Because the river is large and the upper drainage expansive, from many ridges and peaks one can look over vast swaths of the park’s highlands. And there are many such high points along the edges of this drainage and even along ridges that cut across it.

I made this photograph late in the day as the shadows were lengthening and the color of the light was warming. The atmosphere is hazy, a natural condition in the late season, when wildfires begin to increase throughout the west. Those familiar with this area can probably pick out quite a few Sierra landmarks.

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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Central California

Dawn Fog, Central Valley

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Dawn Fog, Central Valley
Dawn fog rises from a drainage canal in California Central Valley agricultural country.

Dawn Fog, Central Valley. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dawn fog rises from a drainage canal in California Central Valley agricultural country.

This area of California’s Central Valley, not far from Sacramento, is a somewhat special place for me despite its relatively mundane appearance. It isn’t a park, you won’t find it on any maps, it is at the terminus of a narrow dead-end road. But it is the place where I “discovered” the state’s migratory birds and began photographing them. I had not really been interested in the subject at all until one morning I had a chance encounter with a colleague in the coffee line at my college. She told me I should go look at this place — “There are lots of birds.” For some reason, a few days later I arose well before dawn and drove a couple of hours to take a look..

She was right. There were lots of birds. Clouds of them, flying in all directions. I more or less had no idea what any of them were — I think I simply figured they were all “geese” — but I was hooked. (In fact I saw cranes, tundra swans, ibises, egrets, and, yes, lots of geese.) On this later trip I paused out on the little road and photographed back toward the early morning sky as fog rose from the water in an irrigation channel.

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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Forest, Early Evening Light

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Forest, Early Evening Light
Soft, early evening light on forest trees in the Tuolumne River Dana Fork drainage

Forest, Early Evening Light. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Soft, early evening light on forest trees in the Tuolumne River Dana Fork drainage

It was evening, and I had stopped in a familiar location along Tioga Pass Road between Tuolumne Meadows and Tioga Pass, a place where the terrain opens up a bit to offer broader views back to the west and up toward the highest peaks in the area, and above which a rugged peak of fractured granite and talus rises. It is also a place where I can almost always spot deer late in the day.

I made a few photographs of the higher peaks and ridges, then turned my attention to photographing forest vignettes using a long focal length lens. In many places the light was difficult, as it almost front-lit the trees in the most obvious direction. As I paused and looked around I first noticed a skeletal dean tree near this spot and started to pay more attention to the forest itself. It was softly lit by light coming from a cloudy sky, and there was enough diffused light to open up the forest shadows just a bit.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Equipment, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Lake and Shoreline, Evening

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Lake and Shoreline, Evening
Lake and Shoreline, Evening

Lake and Shoreline, Evening. Sequoia National Park, California. August 2, 2010. © Copyright 2010 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening light comes to a remote alpine lake in the Sierra Nevada backcountry.

I made this photograph from more or less our campsite on a backpacking trip to this remote area of the upper Kern River drainage in the southern Sierra Nevada back in 2010. It was a trip that combined the familiar and the new, that took me to a spot that I had first thought of visiting decades before, and which provided some surprises. The first few days of the trip covered familiar ground over a couple of high passes and dropped us into the upper Kern on the John Muir Trail. At this point we left the JMT and followed less traveled routes for the remainder of our visit.

Our first departure from the JMT was to head south of northwest into the upper Kern’s more remote areas. We were not so far out on the fringe that there were no trails, but the trails were clearly not well used and we saw very few people. The area is not easy to get to nor is it really on the route between other major points, so those that go there pretty much just go there. Eventually we worked our way over towards the foot of the Great Western Divide, to an area full of intimate meadow/rock landscapes and small lakes. Here we found a beautiful campsite that gave no hints that it had been occupied before. I’m sure it had been, but it is unusual to find such a place in the Sierra that is visited so infrequently that there are not obvious signs of the previous visitors. We set up camp, engaged in warfare with marauding mosquitos, wandered about a bit, and settled in to watch the day come to an end.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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.