Tag Archives: fire

Smoke-Shrouded Hills

March 11, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Wildfire smoke envelops hills east of the Sierra Nevada near Mono Lake

I made this photograph on a special morning that didn’t initially seem all that special. The night before I had driven down into Lee Vining Canyon after dark, and I could see the glow of a new wildfire to the southeast. In the morning I left my camp in the canyon and headed east to see what I could see. I found a high overlook and soon saw a giant plume of rising smoke to the south and tendrils of smoke drifting north toward and over Mono Lake.

I spent a few minutes photographing the drifting smoke above the lake, but very soon the smoke became too thick. I had to find a location that was on that boundary between too much and too little smoke — enough to partially obscure the details of the landscape, but not so much as to render it invisible. I moved further north to another high elevation locations and photographed back into the Basin. But this point the lower elevations were largely filled with smoke, but here one tree-covered ridge emerges and rises toward the still blue sky.

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

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Morning, Wildfire Smoke

December 1, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Wildfire smoke layer drift, above Mono Lake at sunrise

The subject of this photograph comes about as close to being insubstantial as possible. When I began photographing before dawn on this September morning, Mono Lake was still mostly visible, though a large cloud of wildfire smoke was gathering to the southeast and beginning to drift toward the lake. First, layers of smoke began to stretch individually across the lake as sunrise approached. As more of them arrived they began to completely obscure the more distant landscape and to mute the colors and details of objects that were even closer. If you look at this photograph for a moment you can begin to see what remains — a bit of a peninsula with some tufa formations along the right margin, and in the lower center and stretching toward the left some soft reflections of morning light on the surface of the lake.

For a moment when I first saw the smoke I was disappointed that it might interfere with my photography, but it only took a moment to realize that these were special and beautiful conditions not likely to occur that often. The smoke and the morning backlight rendered details almost invisible, only seen faintly through gaps in the smoke. The smoke itself, dividing into layers and taking on subtle colors from the morning back-light, filled the scene with nearly abstract shapes. But before long smoke filled in even more, and soon it was too opaque to photograph at all.

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

Photographs: Nature

Wildfire Smoke, Early Morning

October 14, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

layers of thick wildfire smoke obscure the morning light

This was the culmination of more than twelve hours of observation of a developing wildfire located east of the Sierra Nevada, roughly between Lee Vining and Mammoth Lakes. The previous evening I finished a hike into the Sierra backcountry not far from Tioga Pass, returning to my car well after sunset. As I drove back down Lee Vining Canyon in the near-darkness I saw a big tower of smoke to the southeast and the tell-tale glow of fire on the bottom of the cloud. The next morning I woke up and headed straight back toward Mono Lake, from which I figured I could photograph conditions related to the fire.

I began photographing Mono Lake itself, where the lake was still mostly visible with only a few thin smoke clouds floating over it. But very soon this changed as winds brought the smoke right over Mono Lake, casting a pall over the scene all the way up to Conway Summit. My goal was to head south along the eastern escarpment, but as I did so the smoke only became thicker. I made this photograph at a point closer to the fire, where the smoke was very, very thick, enough so to take away most of the sunlight and add a post-apocalyptic quality to the scene.

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Mono Basin, Wildfire Smoke, Dawn

September 22, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Late summer and early fall are the wildfire season in California and especially in the areas around the Sierra Nevada. (That statement used to be more accurate than it is these days, as drought and anthropic climate change have now extended the fire season in the state.) Like most people who spend time in the outdoors I have complicated responses to wildfire. I hate to see forests and wild lands destroyed, especially by some of the recent super-hot fires that have done more serious damage. At the same time I fully understand that fire is a natural and even necessary component of the natural life in these areas. In recent years I have tried to find beauty alongside the destruction, and it has opened my eyes to seeing fire in different ways.

During my recent mid-September Sierra Nevada photography jaunt, mainly focused on visiting a few high places and scouting early aspen color, a very smoky fire broke out in the Owens River area. I first spotted in while driving down from Yosemite in the evening after a backcountry hike, and the next morning there was a big cloud of smoke over the lands southeast of Lee Vining. Mono Lake was still mostly clear, except at the south end, but beautiful layers of smoke were beginning to drift across the lake before and during sunrise, muting details and rendering more clearly some of the larger elements of the landscape. I moved around the lake and surrounding areas looking for vantage points for several hours, until eventually the smoke-filled Mono Basin so much that I decided to leave.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: fire

Morning, Wildfire Smoke

Wildfire Smoke, Early Morning

Mono Basin, Wildfire Smoke, Dawn

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