Tag Archives: el capitan

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

Light on Granite

July 4, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A gesture of light falls across an irregularity in the granite face of a Yosemite cliff.

There is a tendency for people to regard the landscape as a fixed and even a permanent thing. The mountain will be there when you go back to it in a year or ten or a hundred, so the photograph “captures” a thing that is unchanging. This is, of course, incorrect, and on multiple levels. Supposedly permanent things change constantly — in fact, the forms by which we know them today are the result of profound forces of change that are ongoing. (One reason that climbers wear helmets is that rocks fall…) But changes on much shorter scales are of tremendous interest to those who photograph (or just like to view) than landscape. They range from annual (what is it like [i]this[/i] year?) to seasonal. Some of them obviously occur on a daily basis — and photographers think about those a lot. Light and atmosphere vary in profound and often remarkable ways.

In so many cases, timing is everything. For some, calculating that timing is a key. I just read a friend’s report on a night photograph that he had “figured out” over a year ago — it required him to be in a certain place during a narrow window of time with conditions that were just right. I am impressed! For others — including my friend — even more critical is being attuned to what is happening right now or in the next few minutes or hours and then being ready to respond. I share all of this here with this photograph as the effect of light on this granite face was tremendously transitory. The time between the bulk of the face falling into shadow (and leaving the thin strip in sun) and the complete loss of light was perhaps measured in seconds, and certainly little more than a minute. (This is another photograph from my artist-in-residency sponsored by Yosemite Renaissance this past winter and spring.)

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

Snow-Covered Trees, Cliff

May 20, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Spring snow blankets trees in front of a Yosemite Valley granite cliff face

This past few days has been pretty busy, as I work on making prints for an exhibit that opens on June 2. It looks like the prints are now all made — but the work of trimming, matting, framing, and otherwise preparing them continues over the next few days. The exhibit is “Transitions: Winter Into Spring — Photographs by G Dan Mitchell and Friends.” It features photographs that I made during this year’s winter and spring Yosemite Renaissance artist-in-residency in the park, and photographs by a group of talented photographers and friends including Jerry Bosworth, Franka Mlikota Gabler, Charlotte Hamilton Gibb, David Hoffman, Vidya Kane, and Kerby Smith. The show opens at Gallery 5 in Oakhurst, just outside the park, on June 2 and runs through the end of the month. There is a public reception at the gallery on June 9. If you are in the area, please come and visit!

This photograph is not in the show, but it was made during the project. As the “Winter Into Spring” title of the show suggests, I was in the park frequently from February through the April, working in conditions that ranged from freezing cold and wintry right on through warm and sunny. This photograph came from an early spring day when one of the last snow storms of the season passed through the valley and dropped a few inches of snow — just enough to frost the trees and turn the meadows white. It didn’t last long – most of it melted by the following day, and when I returned a week later I photographed in warm spring sunshine.

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

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

Forest, Granite, And Spring Snow

May 16, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Gentle spring snow flurries on Yosemite Valley meadows and forest

Now that we are well into spring and it feels more like summer here in California, it is fun to take a final look back at winter in the photographic rear-view mirror. It is hard to believe that it was only weeks ago that I was photographing in falling snow in the Valley! When I returned there one week after making this photograph, virtually all traces of the snow had melted and it felt more like late spring or summer.

The storm that came through the Valley during this visit wasn’t a big one. Typical of most “shoulder season” storms in the Sierra, it only dropped an inch or two of snow, and it passed quickly. But for a moment all of the sensory elements of winter made one final stand — the blue-gray color of the scene, the distant cliffs disappearing into falling snow and clouds, and the colors muted to an almost monochrome quality. What the photograph cannot capture, but may possibly suggest, are things like the cool dampness and the changes to sound on these days — a quiet stillness where the sound-space seems larger somehow.

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

The Valley, Morning Sun And Clouds

May 12, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Clouds from a passing weather front break up over Yosemite Valley as sun rises above Sentinel Dome

I confess that I’m often tempted to title photographs of this subject, “Yet Another Clearing Storm.” The subject is, to say the least, done a lot! The location is accessible, the view is tremendous (even if you’ve seen it a hundred times), storms clear in dramatic fashion. Sometimes I just have to stop and photograph it. Again. This does, however, bring to mind the famous comment that one photographer offered when asked by a neophyte if he had any advice about photographing from Tunnel View: “Don’t,” he replied. Yet we do. It can be a sort of guilty pleasure, and on a number of beautiful winter evenings I’ve run into friends there.

The light on this morning was something of a surprise — given what I had seen in the first predawn light I expected gray overcast. But as I came down toward the Valley I began to see hopeful signs — a bit of a glow from the east that suggested breaks beyond the edge of the cloud shield. I arrived here just before the clouds began to open up. I almost didn’t photograph — I first walked over without my equipment thinking it might be a quick stop before moving on. But it soon began to look more and more like the light might become even more interesting, so I raced back to my car and grabbed my camera, lenses, and tripod. Soon the morning sun rose over Sentinel Dome, intermittently breaking through the clouds and sending beams of soft light across and into the Valley.

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G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: el capitan

Light on Granite

Snow-Covered Trees, Cliff

Forest, Granite, And Spring Snow

The Valley, Morning Sun And Clouds

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