“Eastern Sierra Stream, Autumn” — Autumn colors line the banks of a small Eastern Sierra Nevada stream
This photograph is of one of those little places — you could easily pass right by it and miss it. I have, and I’ve even stopped nearby and not seen a photograph. This time I was heading up a canyon in cloudy conditions and light rain, and perhaps the unusual conditions helped me to see differently. In any case, as I drove past the area I noticed the red plants growing close to the ground, even though there were largely obscured by intervening trees.
I quickly turned around and came back, parked, and then spent some time poking around and looking. I finally ended up down along the bank of the stream, the closest I could get to the red plants, and I found a composition looking upstream toward more colorful plants and the white trunks of an aspen grove.
Leave a comment or question using the form. (If you are reading this on the home page, click the article title to see the full article and the comment form.
A fractured granite cliff in the Eastern Sierra Nevada
I made this photograph on a morning when I was in the eastern Sierra to photograph autumn subject, particularly the annual color change of the aspen trees. Being in a place where I have photographed many times, I quickly dispensed with the familiar (and even iconic) subjects in the area and then, as I like to do, simply wandered slowly with my eyes open, looking for little elements of the larger landscape that caught my eye. Although I have walked past this granite quite a few times, it may be the first time I have photographed it.
Granite (along with, as geologist friends might remind me, rocks informally referred to as granite) is ubiquitous in the Sierra, and is one of the most characteristic features of the Sierra Nevada experience. Not only is there a lot of it, but it has been laid bare by (mostly) glacial action, and it appears in its original locations and in places where the rocks have been moved by water and ice. As a person who has hiked here for decades and who spent a few years as a rock climber, I developed an intimate familiarity with this rock. It can be smooth or rough, uniform in color and texture or interspersed with veins and crystals. It can be freezing cold in winter or benignly warm on a summer day. It may be nearly white, gray, or incorporate a host of color variations. It seems to be solid and unchanging, but there is evidence everywhere that it has been moved and broken and shaped.
A grove of colorful autumn aspen trees traces the path of a Sierra Nevada gully
Perhaps a more appropriate title could be “Another River of Aspens” — such features are ubiquitous in the Sierra and other locations, where aspens frequently are found along stream beds and can spread out as water might when they reach the lower and flatter elevations. As a result, the “streams” of trees can seem to flow in almost that same way that water might. This is a particularly obvious example, as the trees meander along the descending gully, spread out into a fan at its base, and then arrive at the shoreline of a lake. (The pattern also is similar to that of alluvial fans and even some forms seen below glaciers.)
We were at this location rather early on a fall morning. It is a place that is popular — a bit too popular these days — with photographers and others, but hard to resist if one is nearby for other purposes. We arrived before dawn and spent some time photographing in the cold, pre-sunrise light before we packed up and headed off to those “other purposes” nearby. This very early light is different from what we experience a bit later in the day. It can be quite blue in quality — often so much so that compensation is required during post processing — but the soft light can produce a more subtle effect with light getting into the shadows and revealing some of their details.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
Manage Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
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.
