Tag Archives: dusted

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Mount Humphreys, Dawn

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Mount Humphreys, Dawn
“Mount Humphreys, Dawn” — Cloud banners blow from the summit pf snow-dusted Mount Humpreys in autumn dawn light

This photograph is from a spectacular landscape in the eastern Sierra above the town of Bishop, in what is sometimes called “Buttermilk Country,” or just plain “the Buttermilks.” Here the land rises steadily from the Owens Valley lowlands, first gradually, then building into the eroded and rounded rocky hills like those catching the sun in the center of this photograph, and finally culminating in the alpine peaks of the Sierra Nevada Crest. The tallest peak in the photograph is Mount Humphreys.

As is typical in autumn, I was in the eastern Sierra to photograph fall color — which mostly means aspens. My recollection is that we started up toward the mountains from Bishop very early in the morning, before sunrise, and then decided that the dawn light on the eastern face of the Sierra offered more possibilities than yet more aspen photographs — besides, the aspens would still be there after this sunrise light was gone! We left the main road and followed gravel tracks to this spot with its view of foreground hills and Sierra crest peaks just as the dawn light show began.

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.

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

Clearing Storm, Panamint Mountains

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Clearing Storm, Panamint Mountains
Clearing Storm, Panamint Mountains

Clearing Storm, Panamint Mountains. Death Valley National Park, California. April 2, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The remnant clouds of a spring storm clear over the snow-dusted peaks of the Panamint Mountains, Death Valley National Park

This was one of the most interesting and varied days I’ve spent in Death Valley, in terms of everything from the weather to photographic subjects. (It probably wasn’t the most varied day—that might be a story for another post sometime.) As is typical, the day began well before dawn with an early wake-up call and a long drive in the dark. In this case, the objective was to be at a high place with a panoramic view before sunrise. We arrived there in the early pre-dawn light to find that clouds were moving in. There was a brief moment of photographable sunrise light, and then the scene went relatively gray, though still with some interesting possibilities. As we left this spot we saw snow flurries on the peaks around us. We then photographed some old remnants of the mining activities in these mountains as the snow increased, at one point coming down fast enough that we decided to beat a retreat to a lower elevation. Intermittently things would clear a bit, and we took advantage of the soft light to make midday photographs of the abundant spring wildflowers.

Eventually the weather began to break up a bit and we had some sun. By this time in the afternoon what had been more or less universal cloudiness and snow in these mountains had transformed into scattered cells of precipitation, but mostly into beautiful blue sky interrupted by billowing, sunlit clouds, whose shadows raced across the high desert landscape. Here, as we returned from investigating what was at the end of a gravel back-country road and were about to return to the paved highway, we stopped to take one last look back towards the higher peaks of the Panamint Mountains.

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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Frozen Pond and Sierra Nevada Range, Owens Valley

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Frozen Pond and Sierra Nevada Range, Owens Valley
Frozen Pond and Sierra Nevada Range, Owens Valley

Frozen Pond and Sierra Nevada Range, Owens Valley. Long Valley Area, California. October 9, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The snow-dusted eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada reflected in the surface of a frozen pond on the high desert of Owens Valley, California.

On a very cold early October morning this year I ended up driving out into Owens Valley toward the Owens River after I spotted some interesting morning fog while driving out of Mammoth Lakes on highway 395. Although I had started out with the intention of photographing aspens, when I saw the fog I changed my plans and decided to leave the aspen photography for later. I first drove to a small lake where I have photographed several times in the past, a lake that provides very still water at sunrise and great reflections of the peaks of the Sierra crest which were covered with the snow from a series of early season storms.

After sunrise I decided that I was finished at that lake, so I got back in the vehicle and went exploring on some gravel roads that wander around in the general area of Hot Creek and Owens River. At first I aimed for some ground fog-covered areas that I had spotted earlier, and for a section of creek where the warm water seems to frequently create interesting fog on cold mornings. I arrived at this creek, took a look around, and decided that it wasn’t quite what I wanted to photograph, so I kept driving, ending up on some roads I had not visited before. As I crossed one long flat area of rangeland I passed this mall frozen pond, drove a bit further, and then turned around to come back and photograph it with the early morning – but no longer dawn – like on the snow-covered peaks just south of Mammoth.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Mount Humphreys and the Sierra Crest, Dawn

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Mount Humphreys and the Sierra Crest, Dawn
Mount Humphreys and the Sierra Crest, Dawn

Mount Humphreys and the Sierra Crest, Dawn. Near Bishop, California. October 15, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dawn light falls on the snow-dusted summit of Mount Humphreys and the Sierra Crest above Bishop, California.

On this morning I paused along highway 168 on my way to photograph fall aspen color in the Bishop Creek Canyon area to photograph the first light on the Buttermilk Range and along the section of the Sierra crest near Mt. Humphreys and Center Peak. My main reason for stopping here was to photograph the Buttermilks, the rocky hills along the giant “fan” rising from Bishop toward the base of the escarpment of the eastern Sierra. The plan was to find a good vantage point, put a long lens on the camera, and then pick out various features of the range as the edge of the first light hit them.

With that in mind, I was set up here before dawn and standing around in the cold morning air waiting for the light to arrive. Obviously, before the dawn light can get down to the elevation of the Buttermilks it must first hit the peaks of the crest, and who can resist that kind of light? The very first light that just touched the tip of Mount Humphreys, near the right side of the frame, was almost too intense in comparison to the shadowed lower slopes, so I continued to wait until the light, still very saturated with color, illuminated the full upper faces of the crest and began to light up the lower peaks to the east.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.