Tag Archives: foliage

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Textures

Aspen Color – Wall of Leaves

November 21, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 5 Comments

A nearly solid wall of brilliant fall aspen leaf color in the eastern Sierra Nevada.

This is going to be the first in a short series of “frame filled with foliage” photographs that I’ll post. Although I think they work best as prints – and fairly large ones at that – I’d like to share these since they are something a bit different that I’ve been working on.

Sometimes I’m just so impressed by the sheer density and complexity of the foliage that I’m tempted to just point that camera at them and click. It might look like that is what is going on here, but I am also trying (remember, “trying!”) to find some sort of pattern and form in these very complex textures. This photograph was made in a small aspen grove that was essentially at the color peak – only a very small number of partly green leaves remained, yet most of the transformed leaves were still on the tree. If you have chased aspen color, you know how difficult it can be to find the leaves at just this point!

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Four Oak Trees, El Capitan Meadow

November 20, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Four black oak trees with early autumn foliage stand in late-afternoon light at El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite Valley.

These four oak trees in El Capitan Meadow are almost iconic, having been photographed by many, many people. On this trip I stopped in El Capitan Meadow near the end of the day – this was my last major shooting location before leaving the Valley for the long trip back to the Bay Area. While there was considerably time left before sunset, because El Capitan Meadow sits to the east of some very tall cliffs, this photograph and others in the series were made just before the list direct light fell on the area. The fact that the areas closer to the cliff faces along the north side of the valley were already in shade helped set off the backlit leaves of the four trees.

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.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen-Covered Hillside, Reflection

November 17, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Brilliantly colorful aspens ascend a hillside valley above the reflecting surface of a Sierra Nevada lake.

This absurdly colorful hillside above a small lake is a well-known autumn sight in the eastern Sierra above Bishop, California. If you hit it at just the right time and in just the right light, the colors can be almost hallucinogenic. (I’ve heard it called the “Cheetos forest,” for reasons that are probably pretty obvious.)

I’ve been there plenty of times, but have never quite hit the right combination of conditions to get a good shot of the color. I came very close a few years ago, arriving in the pre-dawn hours when there was just enough light to make out the river of color snaking up the small valley above the aspen forest near the lakeshore – but before the sun came up a snow squall swept through. I cowered in my car for half hour to escape the wind, and when I was able to get out and start shooting…. half the leaves that had been there 30 minutes earlier were gone!

The good fortune this time was not just that I was there when the color was strong, but it was also a matter of light and weather conditions. The day started out overcast, and things were looking a bit dull. But soon the clouds began to break up to the east (to the right in the photo) and bright but soft light began to filter though and between the clouds as if someone had set up a giant light panel to the east. Instead of photographing the entire hillside, I decided to photograph the horizontal layers rising from the reflections in the surface of the water, through the shoreline grasses and bushes, past the yellow/orange/gold aspens, and up the slope to the brilliant orange colors above.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Color, North Lake

November 15, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 7 Comments

Colorful autumn aspen colors surround the shores of North Lake with the Sierra Crest beyond.

I should probably hand out sunglasses and an Official Icon Alert warning with this one. Yes, it is that North Lake.

Later on this morning, after shooting elsewhere around the lake in the early hours, and after the workshop shooters had mostly moved on (after all, the good light was gone… ;-), I decided to cross the outlet stream and see about climbing up a hill above that lake that I had been thinking about. I found an easy trail along the side of the lake, but then had to more or less bushwhack my way up the slope to get above the tops of the very red lakeside aspens, which is no easy task when carrying a large photo pack and a good size tripod. (Once up there, I discovered a very easy trail going straight to my position. Sigh.)

Although it was no longer the “golden hour” and the morning was well along, there were scattered clouds. These shadows from these clouds moved rapidly across the landscape, sometimes producing almost uniform shade and sometimes lighting up some features while leaving others less visible. When I see conditions like this I often imagine the perfect positioning of the clouds and the light effects they produce – some primary feature caught in the spot light of a beam of sun, others in sunlight muted by thin clouds, and any spots that happen to be a bit too bright and distracting miraculously muted by a perfectly placed shadow. Yeah, right. But if I watch and wait long enough, something interesting almost always happens, and sometimes the moving clouds do momentarily solve composition and exposure problems. Here, the light on the bright red trees in the foreground is momentarily diminished by a passing cloud shadow and the shoreline trees are in sunlight… and the big cloud at upper left is reflecting on the surface of the water just beyond the foreground trees.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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