Tag Archives: erratic

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

Boulders, Tree, and Dark Granite

September 2, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

A solitary tree stands on granite slabs among glacial erratic boulders against the dark background of a granite face in shadow

I have previously posted a few photographs from this early August four-day shoot in Yosemite, when I ranged between about Olmsted Point and Mono Lake for about four days. The photography was a bit strange compared to more normal years – there was smoke in the air from a fire near Mammoth Lakes and there was not much water due to the drought afflicting the mountains after a second very dry winter. So some of my photography instincts may have been challenged a bit, and I had to adapt to conditions – sometimes ending up shooting in a different place than planned when the haze was too thick, sometimes using the haze as part of the photograph, and also ranging a bit more widely than I might usually do.

On this morning I had decided to “work” that area between roughly Tenaya Lake and some rocky slabs a bit past Olmsted Point. I began at Tenaya just before sunrise, but the smoke haze was making things difficult. I made a few photographs along the curving shore as the first sun hit nearby ridges, but I wasn’t especially happy with the atmosphere or the color and quality of the light so I moved on. The slabs and domes along the road to the west of Tenaya Lake, which track the road for some distance and spread well beyond the road itself, have been an ongoing subject of interest to me. While the sun had hit the highest peaks by the time I got there, it had not quite worked its way down to these slabs, so I found some likely groups of glacial erratic boulders and various small trees and made some photographs. In this one, a single tree stands beyond a group of large boulders that had just been hit by the first light, and across a nearby canyon large granite walls are still in shadow.

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

Granite and Trees, Morning

May 13, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Morning light on granite slabs in the Yosemite high country.

These are the light, the rocks, the trees that bring me back to the Yosemite high country of the Sierra Nevada every year when Tioga Pass opens and which keep me coming back until the high country closes again in the fall. Tioga Pass opened for the season this past weekend, and that – plus the chance to see a show and visit with some friends in the Valley – was excuse for a quick visit. I try to go over the pass each season on the day it opens or shortly afterwards. For me, crossing that pass and starting down the road into Lee Vining Canyon marks the start of “summer,” even though the calendar still says it is spring.

Since the high country camp grounds are not open yet and the Forest Service camps east of the pass are also still closed, I ended up getting a last-minute camp site in Yosemite Valley. (This also provided the opportunities to attend the reception for John Sexton’s and Anne Larsen’s show at the Ansel Adams Gallery, to hear John’s wonderful talk about Ansel Adams that evening, and to get one last crack at photographing this year’s dogwood bloom.) On the first day I did little more than make an obligatory drive up toward the pass and see the familiar country. This was the second dry winter in a row in California, and there is very little snow for such an early date in the season. Perhaps because of this, there were far fewer people up there than on other recent opening days. On the second day I got up well before dawn and left my Yosemite Valley camp in darkness, driving up Tioga Pass road early enough to photograph in the May Lake (turnoff), Olmsted Point, and Tenaya Lake areas in early light. Here I found what I was looking for – sparse trees in the back-light from early morning sun, ridges of exfoliating granite, and a bit of hazy morning atmosphere. I suppose it might just be my first high-country photograph of the new season.

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

Glacial Erratics, Near Olmsted Point

October 11, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Glacial erratic boulders rest on a tree-topped granite slab at sunset near Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park

Among the various landscapes of the high Sierra, this sort of scene most clearly says “Yosemite” to me: the glaciated granite slabs, mostly solid but broken but exfoliating and broken by cracks; the scattered glacial erratic boulders left behind by retreating ice; and the sparse trees somehow managing to not only survive but seemingly prosper while growing on almost solid rock. Although you don’t see precisely these things in the better known Valley, once you get up into the high country of the park you’ll see these features almost everywhere, and especially in the zone from, say, 8000′ of elevation or so and on up.

This photograph was made close to Olmsted Point. While Olmsted is probably better known for its “backside” view of Half Dome and its huge views up toward Tenaya Lake and on to the Sierra crest at Mount Conness, the immediate surroundings are full of this typical Sierra terrain that I described above. Most of the terrain above, below, and around the Point shows evidence of this glacial action, and by taking a few steps away from the parking lot in almost any direction (but do avoid cliffs!) you can find enough examples of this landscape to keep yourself occupied for a long time.

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

Trees and Granite, Morning Light

August 18, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

First morning light on trees and granite slabs near Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park.

I made this photograph a year ago, almost exactly, in August of 2011, while on a trip of several days devoted to photographing the High Sierra, mostly in the Tuolumne Meadows area of Yosemite. A year later I do not remember all of the details of this morning, though I recall that I had gone very early to the Olmsted Point area to photograph the glacial erratic boulders and some rugged trees growing on the granite slabs found in the area. Perhaps this was among the first photographs I made, before heading off to shoot my primary subject, since the series it comes from includes the very first light to strike these trees, while its angle was still small enough to hit the trees but not the rock.

When I came upon this photograph in the old raw file archive this week, one thing that struck me is the fact that it does include a Yosemite icon (seen from an iconic angle that is often photographed), yet that icon is almost an afterthought and most certainly not the primary subject of the photograph. I posted something here yesterday about photographing icons (“Photographing Icons or Not”), and one of the ideas that you might take away from that post is that it is possible to see iconic sights in ways that do not necessarily repeat the familiar iconic views. (Not to fear, I have the iconic view of this subject, too.) I’m willing to bet that I was thinking a whole lot more about the warm first light on the foreground trees, the way it contrasted with the cooler blue tones of the deep canyon and shadowed ridges beyond, and the texture and shapes of the foreground granite slabs that are so characteristic of this part of the Sierra.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: erratic

Boulders, Tree, and Dark Granite

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Glacial Erratics, Near Olmsted Point

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Trees and Granite, Morning Light

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

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