Tag Archives: fall

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley

White Mountains, Autumn Storm

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White Mountains, Autumn Storm
An autumn storm drops snow on the summit of the White Mountains.

White Mountains, Autumn Storm. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An autumn storm drops snow on the summit of the White Mountains.

Autumn is fascinating time of transition in the Sierra Nevada. One day it can be sunny a warm, with the landscape filled with the golden and brown tones of fall — perhaps the most inviting form of the Sierra landscape. The next day something resembling winter sweeps in, the wind rises and the skies turn gray, and snow falls among the peaks. While summer is the time of easy access to most of the range, I’ve always had a great fondness for autumn in the Sierra — it is, without a doubt, my favorite time of year there.

We had ascended high on the giant fan at the base of the range above Bishop, looking for new perspectives and for aspen groves a bit more off the beaten track. The previous day and night had brought an early weather front through the range, closing some of the passes, and laying down a few inches of snow on the highest regions. From our position we looked back across foothill formations and the Owens Valley toward the immense White Mountains, a range that is just as high as the Sierra, where new snow coated the cloud-covered peaks.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Four Trees, Owens Valley And The Sierra

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Four Trees, Owens Valley And The Sierra
Four Owens Valley trees in evening light, against the shadowed backdrop of the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada.

Four Trees, Owens Valley And The Sierra. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Four Owens Valley trees in evening light, against the shadowed backdrop of the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada.

Our recent travels ultimately took us to Utah, but we began with an obligatory visit to the Eastern Sierra Nevada. It doesn’t really seem like autumn until I have renewed my acquaintance with the autumnal transformation of the aspen trees. I had been up there a week earlier, so this was a shorter visit, but it gave us enough time to do a bit of exploring, visiting some spots that we don’t typically visit.

On our final evening before continuing to the east we decided to do a bit of wandering in Owen’s Valley, and our random ride eventually brought us to this spot just as the last sunlight was coming over the Sierra crest and angling across the Valley. We had headed out this direction for an almost entirely unrelated reason, but once there this row of four trees distracted us, and we quickly worked the light before it was gone. (This was one of those landscape-photography-as-action-photography moments — that shadow line was approaching quickly as I made my exposures, and before long the trees were no longer in the sun.) From this vantage point the immensity and abruptness of the eastern escarpment of the Sierra is clear — the wall of peaks, here embellished with a trace of autumn snow, towers above Owens Valley.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Shades of Autumn

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Shades of Autumn
A scene of dense vegetation with fall color, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Shades of Autumn. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A scene of dense vegetation with fall color, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

On this day I came upon a dense grove of small aspen trees mixed with some autumn-colored mountain willows with their slightly less flamboyant brownish fall color. At the time I arrived the trees were in the shadow of the tall mountains nearby, and the light had a bit of a blue quality. It was also soft and diffused, leading to an absence of very bright highlights and filling the shadows with light, too. The aspen leaves stood out a bit from the background with they yellow color.

Looking for some kind of order and structure in such dense subjects is a challenge, one that forces the photographer to look beyond the obvious ways of seeing. Subtle lines in the dense and complex texture can be enough to direct the eye. Slight contrasts in luminosity or color become important. And the lack of a single strong central subject lets the eye wander about the frame and take in the complexity of the scene.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Aspen Grove in Back Light

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Aspen Grove in Back Light
Bright back-light accentuates the colors of autumn Sierra Nevada aspen trees.

Aspen Grove in Back Light. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Bright back-light accentuates the colors of autumn Sierra Nevada aspen trees.

This grove of small aspens presented a photographic problem. Due to Sierra Nevada wildfires, smoke had drifted across the entire range from west to east. There was an ugly haze in the sky that obscured any distant features and which discolored the light. Often in such conditions I will photograph with black and white in mind since that can actually take advantage of the haze in some situations. However, although it is possible to photograph fall color in black and white, this grove’s intense colors called for, well, a color photograph.

The solution had two parts. First, I used a longer lens to exclude the larger landscape, leaving only the small grove of trees in a little valley below my position. Second, I positioned myself where the sun was directly behind the grove, and the back-light lit the leaves from behind, almost making them glow and intensifying the autumn colors.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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