Tag Archives: eastern

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Mount Tom, Tungsten Hills

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Mount Tom, Tungsten Hills
Mt. Tom and the Tungsten Hills along the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada.

Mount Tom, Tungsten Hills. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Mt. Tom and the Tungsten Hills along the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada.

This photograph memorializes one of a series of very dry winters in California, a period many of us remember as the great drought. For five years little rain fell in most of the state and in other parts of the West. The Sierra Nevada snowpack suffered, and consequently the forests were decimated and water shortages were a very real concern everywhere.

The view of the Sierra seen here is what you might typically see at some point in June or even a bit later, when the winter snow pack has diminished to the point that high country travel starts to become easier. But this was early January! I passed through here on my way home from Death Valley and recall being shocked at the bare peaks on the east side of the range.

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: Mono Lake Basin

Tufa Field, Dawn

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Tufa Field, Dawn
First dawn light on a field of short tufa formations.

Tufa Field, Dawn. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

First dawn light on a field of short tufa formations.

One of the great privileges about photographing landscapes is that I get to wake up way before dawn so that I can be in place before the sun rises. No, really. Like many of you, I used to dread the idea of getting up in the dark, and I could not fathom how anyone could actually want to do this. But even though I’ll admit that the sound of an alarm at, say, 3:30AM is not something I look forward to, at least I now understand that there are rewards that make it worthwhile. Such as standing alone in an immense, silent space as the first light creeps over mountains to the east.

Tufa, from I’ve come to understand, comes in quite a variety of shapes and sizes. There some well-known tufa structures that have been photographed lots of times not far from here, and I’ve photographed those, too. I have gotten to know some absolutely huge tufa formations in desert areas around Death Valley. (If you were familiar with only the first one I mentioned above, you might not even recognize the second as an example of the same thing.)These very small tufa structures embody yet another form of this stuff.

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.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Layers

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Aspen Layers
Layers of autumn color in shaded aspen groves

Aspen Layers. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Layers of autumn color in shaded aspen groves.

Overall, the current Eastern Sierra Nevada fall color season has seemed less stunning than in the best years. The start was promising, with good high elevation color arriving on the expected schedule. But later on a number of areas that frequently offer up amazing color did not quite deliver. However, a few points are in order. Even in a less-than-astonishing year there is great color to be found if you just look around a bit. (And some of it is not in the usual iconic locations.) And a lot depends on the specific moment you arrive — the day and even the time of day.

This grove may serve as an example. We first spotted it while driving past in the early morning, when the sun had not yet arrived on this spot. We continued up the road a bit, thinking we’d turn around and photograph it a bit later. It turned out that “a bit later” produced some pretty uninspiring light on this subject… so we returned the next day and timed our visit more carefully. Photographing fall color in shaded light can produce a very different effect than photographing in full sun, with more color subtle and varied color with more shadow detail. This grove offered an additional compositional detail — the heights of both the small and large trees produced a sort of arch shape.

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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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Aspens In Canyon Light

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Autumn Aspens In Canyon Light
Colorful autumn aspen trees in an Eastern Sierra Nevada canyon

Autumn Aspens In Canyon Light. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Colorful autumn aspen trees in an Eastern Sierra Nevada canyon.

The quality of the light, as we all know, is incredibly important in photography — where it comes from relative to the subject, its color, whether it is harsh or filtered, how it differs in various areas of the frame, and much more. In some cases great light can make a not-so-exciting subject “work” as a photograph, while poor light can make it difficult or impossible to make an effective photograph of a great subject. In landscape photography we don’t generally have much ability to control the light. But we can learn to anticipate what it may do, and we can try to time our photographs for when the light may be at its best.

The window of opportunity for this light on this subject is very small. The idea here was to photograph this grove during the very short period when shadows, created as the sun dropped behind high ridges in the upper canyon, moved across the frame. At this point the backlight would intensify the colors of the trees, yet it would be slightly muted. Additionally, the haze in the far upper canyon would glow in the backlight. When we arrived at this spot the light was far from ideal, and I think that the people who accompanied me may have wondered what I saw. But a few moments later we all experienced the brief transition of wonderful light that I came here to see.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.