Tag Archives: fall

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Nevada

Ring Of Aspens

November 6, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two autumn aspens in a small clearing, surrounded by a circular grove of larger trees

Thinking that I would like to explore some new areas, in late September I headed out to Great Basin National Park along the eastern border of Nevada, just a few miles from Utah. I picked this time to go since I knew that Utah aspen color can peak than that in California — late September rather than early October — and I figured that the same calendar might work in Nevada. I made the long (12 hour!) drive from the San Francisco Bay Area to Baker, Nevada in a day, and the next morning I set out to enjoy a rare thing — the first experience in a new (to me) national park. To describe it briefly, much of the park encompasses and mountain range among the many found in Nevada’s basin and range country. The highest peak is over 13,000′ tall and even supports a small glacier. This high area is, at least to most people, on of the two main features of the park. The other is Lehman Caves, which I did not visit on this trip.

While much of Nevada is “basin,” and therefore dry and without a ton of vegetation, these mountain ranges can support a lot of life. They are often covered with forests, and there are lots of aspens if you look in the right places. The aspens were high on my list of photographic targets. But it seemed that I may have slightly miscalculated on the dates of peak color, and when I arrived many of the trees were still quite green. (Others had apparently just dropped leaves, and late in the visit I finally did “discover” a less-traveled canyon with lots of colorful trees.) I found one lookout high in the mountains from which I could look across a large valley, and in this valley there are quite a few aspens — solid groves of them and other trees interspersed with the conifers. This small grove caught my attention with its unusual arrangement — a ring of trees surrounding a couple of isolated trees.

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

Big Leaf Maple, Forest Trail

November 5, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A forest trail winds past big leaf maple trees with fall colors in Yosemite Valley

This was a busy day! I described it in an earlier post, but here is a brief recap. I started in Oakhurst before dawn, heading out to photograph sunrise at Glacier Point — but I didn’t make it after I became distracted by a lovely forest scene along the way. Then I photographed wildfire smoke east of Glacier Point, returned to The Valley to shoot fall color, lost patience with the crowds and smoke, headed to Tioga Pass, and ended the day photographing sunset light on snow-dusted granite slabs. Whew!

In the middle of the day I spent a brief time in The Valley before heading back to the high country. The crowds were shocking, especially for this late October date. I left my car and headed out on foot, going into an area with lots of big leaf maple trees. This is also a location where I know I can find not only a bit of solitude but also some very special light. Here the forest sometimes opens toward a very large expanse of vertical granite, and this rock acts as a gigantic reflector, casting soft light back into shaded areas along the opposite canyon wall. It was here that I stopped to photograph this quiet little autumn scene, with a deserted trail passing through the open forest.

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

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature

Aspen Color

October 29, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Aspen grove containing colors from green through red and orange to yellow

I have been watching this location for many years, and even this season I had checked it out earlier in the week to see how the color was coming along. During that first check the color was just beginning, and most of the trees were still green, but when we returned just a matter of days later the scene had been transformed, and most of the trees were wildly colorful. The bits of remaining green seemed to be just enough to set off the brighter shades of yellow, orange, and red.

Photographing aspen color depends a lot on the nature of the light at the time of the photograph. Midday light can be harsh, and the subtle qualities of the coloration can be lost. In fact, if the light on the front of the aspen trees they lose virtually all of their color and they can look quite drab and boring. On the other hand, photographing aspens in shadows can let the colors glow, especially after a bit of adjustment to compensate for the blue quality of the shadow light. Additionally, the softer shadow light allows shaded portions of the scene to be more visible. On this morning we planned our time to make sure that we arrived at a series of locations just before the shadows were overwhelmed by the arrival of direct sun. In fact, as I photographed these shadowed trees, the line of sunlight streaming over a nearby peak was only feet behind my camera position.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspens At The Shoreline

October 28, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A grove of shoreline autumn aspen trees reflects on the surface of a subalpine lake

We arrived before dawn at this little eastern Sierra Nevada lake because, well that’s what photographers do! Also we knew that it would be most effective to photograph aspen color at this location in the soft, pre-sunrise light and the shadowed light that follows before the sun rises above the peaks and shines harsh light on the scene. It was one of those wonderful autumn mornings when it actually feels like fall has arrived. The temperature was as low as 23 degrees, and we had to wear lots of layers as we went to work.

We began by photographing a familiar sight, a band of aspens that drops down the opposite mountainside, following a gully to the shores of the lake. I’ve photographed it so many times that I almost never simply make another photograph that includes the larger scene, and instead I now look for smaller components of the large scene that might be compositionally interesting. As the direct sun arrived on that subject I shifted my attention to other things that were still in the soft light, including this bit of the aspen grove right at the shoreline, reflected in the still early morning waters of the lake.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: fall

Ring Of Aspens

Big Leaf Maple, Forest Trail

Aspen Color

Aspens At The Shoreline

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