Tag Archives: evening

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

Mt. Conness, Dusk

October 10, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dusk light falls across Mt. Conness and northern Yosemite wilderness

This ridge holds an astonishing range of photographic subjects, ranging from the smallest (tiny trees growing through cracks in the rock) through the intimate landscapes of trees and boulders and culminating in some grand vistas of distant ridges and peaks. For several days, even though there were other nearby subjects calling out to me, I returned repeatedly to this area, whose size cannot be more than a few acres.

I climbed up to photograph on this ridge one final time on our last night at this location. At first I went back to take care of some unfinished business — photographing subjects that I had seen but not shot on previous evenings, looking for a few in evening light that I had noticed at other times of the day, and working to perfect and distill images of certain subjects that I had photographed earlier. I finished most of that work as the sun set and the light began to go, and I started back across the ridge toward camp. As I crossed the ridge I caught a view of distant Mount Conness — named after the senator whose bill created Yosemite as a national park in the 1800s — in the glow of post-sunset dusk light that was still illuminating the foreground forest and granite.

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

Glacial Erratics, Cathedral Range

October 8, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Sunset light on glacial erratics, domes, and the Cathedral Range

The first time I ascended this system of granite slabs to its high point was in the morning, and my goal was to shoot the opposite direction from the scene shown here, so that I could capture the backlight on trees ascending from the ridge toward a higher valley to the east. While up here it became apparent that this spot had potential beyond just that of trees in morning light, and I made several more visits during out stay here.

On this evening I thought I would find out what late-day light possibilities might exist. My initial idea was to arrive soon enough to shoot down the slabs into an open forest of lodgepole pines that seemed like it might catch evening backlight in interesting ways. I arrived at a spot from which I thought such a shot was possible, but it seemed a bit too early for ideal light, and I continued on up the granite rib to a higher point. The atmosphere and light were a bit tricky. At this time of year it is very common to see a bit of wildfire smoke in the air, and that was the case on this evening. In addition, there were some high clouds far to the west and seemed likely to mute the last light. In fact, just as I initially set up this shot the light quickly faded, as if someone had turned down the dimmer switch on a lighting system! At first I was disappointed, but when I looked to the west to see the clouds that blocked the light I could see that there was a gap below the clouds through which the sun would likely shine once more before sunset. So I waited. Perhaps five or ten minutes later the light began to change silently (somehow it always seems a bit odd that only the light changes at those moments) and I managed to shoot through the transition from dark to full light and make one exposure when the light had come back on both the near features and the distant ridge.

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

Glaciated Granite Landscape

October 7, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Looking through evening haze into the depths of a deep canyon of glaciated granite, Yosemite National Park

Near a lake in the Yosemite backcountry where we camped for five nights were many examples of the common Yosemite glacial granite slab terrain, with sparse trees and glacial erratic boulders on top of both broken granite and smooth glacial polish. The highest nearby area of this sort attracted us and we visited it many times in both morning and evening hours.

This area, which featured a couple of low domes separated by a saddle of broken granite, sat near the edge of a very large river canyon that leads away to the west. The photographic possibilities here could keep one busy for many days — even more than the 5 or so days we had to work here. In the evening the light of the setting sun shone up the length of the canyon, causing the atmosphere within to glow and lighting all sorts of domes and ridges within the canyon. Sitting at the edge of this huge open area we also had extensive views of further and higher mountains. On this evening I climbed to the top of one of the domes and pointed my camera down into the depths of this canyon, shooting across the top of a nearby ridge on which scattered trees were still in the last light.

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

Last Light, Yosemite Backcountry

October 2, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Final evening light on the face of a granite dome in the Yosemite National Park backcountry

As I have mentioned previously while sharing this set of photographs from my early September Yosemite backcountry photography, the particular ridge from which I made this photograph drew me back repeatedly. I climbed it to photograph in the early morning and late in the evening, and in conditions ranging from clear to hazy to scattered clouds. While the larger scene might be regarded as “typical Sierra,” it was possible to juxtapose and pick out all sorts of interesting elements, and the changing light transformed this landscape in surprisingly striking ways.

This was a particularly beautiful evening, and the light and landscape offered up many possibilities over the time I was there — from very late afternoon right on past the sunset. This was one of my final exposures of the evening, and the very last beams of red sunset light were coming up the canyon from the west after passing through a lot of low-level atmospheric haze in order to softly illuminate the edges of the granite slopes along the top of the near ridge as the rest of the scene was already falling into “blue hour” light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: evening

Mt. Conness, Dusk

Glacial Erratics, Cathedral Range

Glaciated Granite Landscape

Last Light, Yosemite Backcountry

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