Tag Archives: flow

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

Impossible Tree Falls

June 24, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

“Impossible Tree Falls” in full early season flow, fed by the runoff from a very heavy snowpack, Yosemite National Park.

I don’t know if this is really called Impossible Tree Falls, but I like the name and I’m going with it. My guess is that the reason for the name might be two-fold. First, the tree does grow right in the middle of this roadside water fall. It must be an interesting few weeks each spring when this tree wakes up to find itself in the middle of a raging water fall, since the rest of the year things are much calmer. Second, the trees seems to grow on nothing but bare rock. It is hard to see in this mist-covered and back-lit image, but it looks like the tree is rooted in solid rock.

For a person who likes to occasionally think of himself as something of a back-country photographer, it is almost embarrassing to admit that this waterfall is right next to Tioga Pass Road. I’ll be honest – I parked my car in a pull-out on the opposite side of the roadway and probably never moved more than 10 yards from there. To add insult to injury, at a couple of points I had to stop shooting while passing recreational vehicles interfered with the view! ;-)

But none of that makes the tumultuous little waterfall any less impressive. It appears above the road, where it seems to come out of a flatter forest area, and then it abruptly tumbles down a very steep rocky incline, twisting and turning around boulders – and one solitary tree.

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

Boulders and Spring Torrent, Cascade Creek

May 25, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

I recently posted the black and white version of this photograph of Cascade Creek in full spring flow.

The color version of this photograph posed a series of post-processing questions and problems that others who have worked with a scene like this one can probably imagine. The creek descends through a narrow, rocky gorge at this point and I photographed it early in the morning before any direct sunlight was able to reach the water. Benefits of shooting at this time included the softer light, which tends to both throw some light into the shadows and to soften the brightest highlights. This also permits a longer exposure which allows the water to blur a bit and express the wild motion of the creek. However, since the primary source of light was the open sky, the camera “sees” a very blue scene. (Our visual system compensates for this, so it doesn’t look as blue as it really is when you are on the scene.)

There are several ways to deal with the color balance issues that this situation creates. You could just “go with the blue,” and I’ve seen photographs done that way. I’ve even seen some in which the photograph amped up the saturation and ended up with something very blue. In general, that’s not my thing! I’m most often looking for something that seems “believable” – it may not be objectively accurate, but I intend it to be “subjectively accurate.” With this in mind, my first instinct was simply to warm the color balance in order to move away from the blue cast and toward a warmer one.

My immediate impression was that this was an improvement, and I worked with this interpretation for several days – but something about it didn’t sit quite right with me. (This is perhaps one reason that I also worked with the black and white rendition in the meantime.) Eventually I did some comparisons between the “warmed up” version and the original… and neither seemed like what I was after. The overly blue original looked garish but the overly warm version seemed artificial. I tried some other approaches and finally discovered that because the blue was so intense that I could simply desaturate it – more than you might think – and keep the “colder” coloration without letting it overwhelm the image.

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

Boulders and Spring Torrent, Cascade Creek

May 23, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Runoff from spring snow melt rushes over boulders of Cascade Creek, Yosemite National Park.

This is a subject that I return to several times each year – a particular section of creek that can be viewed from overhead and which can vary from nearly dry to a wild torrent depending upon the time of year and the character of each new year. During the past year I was inspired by Charles Cramer’s stunning photograph of this subject to look at it more closely and from some different perspectives. (A small bit of “Charlie’s scene” appears in this photograph. I wonder if you can find it? :-)

In some ways, the view of this scene is limited in that you can only see it from a particular range of positions – unless you have the skill of levitation! In another way it is hardly limiting at all since the larger view contains many possible smaller views of rocks and plants and water and light. I still have in mind a horizontal composition in this general area, but so far it hasn’t quite worked. Guess I’ll have to keep trying.

I made this photograph in the morning before any direct light had worked its way around the mountains and down into the stream bed. Beyond the stream, which drops precipitously into the Merced River far below, there was open sky and that is the light that reflects on some of the wet rocks. By playing around to find an appropriate combination of ISO values, aperture, and shutter speed, I tried to get the water to hold some detail but to also be blurred enough to reflect its wild motion as it tumbles down this rocky canyon.

As is sometimes the case, I still cannot decide for sure between this monochrome version and a color version that will appear here before long.

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

Spring Torrent, Cascade Creek

May 15, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A torrent of water from melting spring snow rushed through a rocky section of Cascade Creek, Yosemite National Park.

During the early part of the seasonal spring snowmelt runoff, Cascade Creek is transformed into a wild and raging torrent as the lower elevation snow in the upper portion of its drainage begins to melt quickly. Contributing to the spectacular effect is the very steep path the creek follows down the walls of the Merced Canyon before it makes one final leap over a waterfall and then joins with the main Merced River.

This bit of creek is another of those places in the Sierra that I have come to know very well. There are certain places where I like to say that I know individual rocks and trees, and this is one of them. I photograph here several times each year during all seasons and in all kinds of light. But my favorite is the early morning spring light, before the sun rises high enough to directly illuminate the creek bed, when the creek is flowing madly and twisting and turning around and over boulders.

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