Tag Archives: first

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Dunes, First Light

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Dunes, First Light
First light on Death Valley sand dunes

Dunes, First Light. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

First light on Death Valley sand dunes

No matter how many times I experience it — and I’ve experienced it a lot! — the instant when the first sunlight suffuses the landscape is always magical. Invariably, it sneaks up on me, even though I plan to be there for it and have probably calculated the precise time of the light’s arrival. Perhaps it is because I’m engaged in photographing the pre-sunrise light, a phenomenon that also is transitory. To this day, it still somehow surprises me when this light arrives in complete silence and stillness. Somehow it seems like there should be music or a rising wind… but it is just the light.

Sand dunes provide unending possibilities for photography, and they are a remarkable canvas on which the light can paint. In the middle of the day this sand would be a sort of bland off-white color. But for a few moments at the start and end of the day the sand takes on almost gaudy colors of sky and sunlight, and the soft shadows both emphasize the forms of the dunes and produce their own shapes and lines. Non-photographers probably wonder how we can force ourselves out of bed a couple hours before dawn and drive or hike long distances the pre-dawn darkness. We wonder how the rest of the world can sleep through it!

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 and Amazon.
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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

First Snow At First Light

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First Snow At First Light
Dawn light and shadows on an eastern Sierra ridge with dusting of early autumn snow.

First Snow At First Light. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. October 5, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dawn light and shadows on an eastern Sierra ridge with dusting of early autumn snow.

On this early October morning I had a bit of time for photography before I had to start my drive back to the Bay Area. I had a plan to visit a somewhat lonely high spot from which I might have a view of aspen groves lit by dawn light, so I was up way before sunrise. I broke camp and headed out, driving some gravel roads to get to my destination and arriving before dawn. It was cold! This was the sort of autumn morning that makes it clear the summer is over and winter is coming. When I got up it was 27 degrees, but when I arrived at my destination it was 23. I put on lots of layers, got out of my vehicle, and set up my tripod and camera.

My initial subject was to be the aspens, and I began photographing them in the soft predawn light. A few minutes later the first direct sun hit the tall ridge of the Sierra crest above me and I turned my camera in that direction. As the light swept across ridges and gullies, there was a big contrast between the extremely warm colors of the rock lit by dawn sun and the deep blue light on the snow in the ravines. A day and a half earlier the first snow of October had dusted the Sierra crest. Looked at in a particular way, this photograph appears to me as an almost abstract pattern out of which the forms of the mountain resolve themselves only when I look more closely.

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 and Amazon.
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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Morning Above The Meadow

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Morning Above The Meadow
First light comes to ridges and peaks above a subalpine meadow

Morning Above The Meadow. Yosemite National Park, California. July 27, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

First light comes to ridges and peaks above a subalpine meadow

Nothing was yet open along Tioga Pass Road when I visited in late July. Typically all of the campgrounds would be open by this point, but an exceptionally heavy winter snowfall had delayed the process of clearing the road and opening up the high country. There was still a lot of snow at around 10,000′ and higher, and water was running high and fast everywhere. Early in the morning I drove back into the park from my camp site just east of the crest, heading down to Tuolumne Meadows to make some early morning photographs.

I’m often a bit surprised by how few people who camp at Tuolumne manage to make it out to the meadow for first light, missing what is arguably the most beautiful time of the day. On this day, with the campground closed, there was almost no one else at the meadow — I had the place almost entirely to myself. I stopped at the lower end of the meadow and looked back to the east, across the meadow and then a series of successive ridges, including a couple of well-known domes, and finally to the summit of Mount Dana. The sun had just risen on the east side of the range, and its light was beginning to pour over the ridges of the Sierra crest.

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 and Amazon.
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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

Shoreline, First Morning Light

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Shoreline, First Morning Light
First morning light comes to the forested shoreline of a Sierra Nevada backcountry lake

Shoreline, First Morning Light. Yosemite National Park, California. September 5, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

First morning light comes to the forested shoreline of a Sierra Nevada backcountry lake

Near the end of the summer of 2014 I ventured into the Yosemite backcountry with a group of friends and photographers for a week of landscape photography work, first at a somewhat isolated lake and then near a more popular location. Although I’ve been a backpacker for years, accustomed to slogging along with a big backpack carrying all of my own gear, on this trip we were supported by pack train. In fact, we had stupendous support. All of our non-photographic gear was packed in to the first location. A few days later a pack train returned and moved our gear to the next location. (Meanwhile we hiked a cross-country route to get there, following a trajectory that stock could not use.) And finally at the end of the trip the packers came back again and schlepped our gear back out to civilization. I think I could get used to this — though I still very much enjoy the quiet and slow pace of self-contained backpacking.

We were at the lake for three or four days, long enough go venture beyond the obvious things that one sees when first arriving at a place. We had time to return to subjects and reconsider them a few days later, possibly in different light or at a different time of day. We were also able to push out boundaries outward a bit from the lake itself, climbing a few of the nearby promontories. And, always, we had the luxury of rolling out of sleeping bags before dawn, walking a few steps to the lakeshore, and beginning the day’s work. This photograph was made not more than five minutes from camp as the first light began to work down to lake level.

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 and Amazon.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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