Tag Archives: el

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

Morning Light, Haze, El Capitan

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Morning Light, Haze, El Capitan
Beams of early morning sunlight pass through haze to illuminate El Capitan

Morning Light, Haze, El Capitan. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Beams of early morning sunlight pass through haze to illuminate El Capitan

I’m coming to think of the start of this particular day in lower Yosemite Valley as being “Bierstadt Day.” Albert Bierstadt was a landscape painter who made several notable renderings of Yosemite subjects in the 1800s, paintings that perhaps formed the image for the park for many who saw them. They are not “realistic” in a photographic sense, but tend toward exaggerating features and using dramatic effects of perspective, atmosphere, and light. When I see Bierstadt paintings I often think both of how they evoked the wonder of seeing remarkable places like Yosemite Valley and of how flexibly and subjectively he treated these subjects. I also think about how little they look like the literal place, as least in objective sense.

However, at certain moments, the quality of light and atmosphere came close on this morning. The morning began inauspiciously, and in the pre-dawn light I could tell that it was cloudy and gray. However, as I approached the Valley from Wawona there were breaks in the clouds. Arriving at my first clear viewpoint, the iconic tunnel view (where I usually wouldn’t stop on my way into the Valley), the view included the usual Valley features, layers of drifting clouds and mist, and beams of colorful light playing across this landscape. I put a long lens on my camera and began to follow the changing conditions, picking out small sections of the grand view that seemed most interesting. At the moment of this photograph (and, indeed, the light lasted only a moment) sun beams broke through the clouds and moved in front of the face of El Capitan.

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

El Capitan, Morning Light and Clouds

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El Capitan, Morning Light and Clouds
Clouds and mist shroud El Capitan shortly after sunrise

El Capitan, Morning Light and Clouds. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Clouds and mist shroud El Capitan shortly after sunrise

This morning was (yet another) lesson about not making assumptions too quickly, and about being ready to react quickly to changing conditions. I was up well before dawn and after coffee I quickly packed and headed out the door to my vehicle, ready to start the drive from Wawona to The Valley. There was enough light to get some idea of the conditions, and they did not warrant much optimism — the sky was completely covered by clouds, and as I drove they seemed to be getting thicker to the west, suggesting that they were increasing rather than thinning. As I continued to drive, crossing the road’s high point before descending toward Yosemite Valley, the light began to suggest the possibility of breaks in the clouds to the east. Sure enough, as I got my first long view of The Valley, there was open sky in that direction. What had promised to be dull and gray was starting to look more like their could be potential for special atmospheric conditions.

I made a few quick photographs at this first viewpoint and quickly moved on, driving through Wawona Tunnel and existing to the famous view of the Valley. Typically there are very few photographers here in the early morning — the opposite of the typical evening crowd — but the unfolding light show caused some of us to pull up short here and make some photographs. At this point I rarely do “the shot” of the full Valley scene in anything short of astounding conditions, preferring instead to focus on smaller components of the grand scene. As I photographed with a long lens, light appeared and disappeared, clouds drifted, beams struck isolated elements of the landscape, and there were bits of visual drama everywhere.

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, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Sunset Tree, Granite Cliff

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Sunset Tree, Granite Cliff
A solitary tree caught in a beam of sunset light beneath El Capitan

Sunset Tree, Granite Cliff. Yosemite Valley, California. February 25. 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A solitary tree caught in a beam of sunset light beneath El Capitan

As a friend recently wrote, lots of photography stories begin with a recounting of how bad the light was and end with an unexpected miracle of light. I’m not sure that this event qualifies as a miracle, but it certainly was unexpected. After a day of photographing in Yosemite Valley I was more or less ready to take a break and clouds were closing in, so I decided I might as well head to Tunnel View and just take a look. I had no plan to photograph. I arrived and parked, got out of my vehicle, and walked to the overlook unburdened by any photographic equipment at all. Clouds were thickening above the Valley and it looked like a predicted weather front was probably approaching from the west, meaning that more clouds would be blocking the light from the west. I decided to go back to my car to get my smart phone so that I could walk back and make a “Hi, I’m here!” photo to send to my family.

As I returned, I saw a beam of light start to illuminate the opposite valley wall to the west-northwest, and I quickly figured out that it was gradually angling toward the base of El Capitan. There are no guarantees of how such an event will unfold, but it is better to be prepared and end up disappointed than to not be ready and miss photographing something glorious. So I dashed back to the car again, grabbed camera gear, rushed back, and set up. By now the narrow beam of light was traversing the valley wall almost all the way to the base of El Capitan, and for a brief moment it caught this solitary tree in its spotlight as another band of golden hour light washed across the upper face and lit the edge of the monolith.

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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Merced River, Branches, El Capitan

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Merced River Reflections
Merced River Reflections

Merced River Reflections. Yosemite Valley, California. November 30, 2005. © Copyright 2005 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Branches in the still water of the Merced River with floating autumn leaves and the reflection of El Capitan, Yosemite Valley.

This photograph is almost a bit of an optical trick. I’ll let you look for a second and figure it out…

… Does it make sense now? The foreground is composed of some intertwining dead branches just above the surface of a very still section of the quiet, late autumn Merced River in Yosemite Valley. The leaves floating on and just beneath the surface of the water give it away. Because there are so many branches, their dark reflections seem, to me at least, to almost merge with the shapes of the actual branches, creating a complex pattern. And, reflected in the surface of the water and appearing as a backdrop to these elements, is the sunlit face of El Capitan.

I would love to tell a great story about making this photograph… but I don’t remember making it! I discovered it only recently while reviewing all of my old raw files, and all I can say for sure is that I made it on one of my annual late October trips to The Valley to photograph the fall colors. For those who follow the technical stuff, I made this photograph with some pretty low-level gear back at a time when I was experimenting with my first DSLR. The camera was the very humble (but better than some think, at least for this sort of thing!) Canon Digital Rebel XT, an early 8 MP body. Even more humble was the lens, the not so swell EFS 17-85mm Canon lens.

(Note: This was originally posted on September 21, 2011. I’m moving this photograph back up on the home page today as this is a new revision of the original photograph — the date of the revision is December 26, 2014)

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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