Tag Archives: forest

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Granite Slabs, Forest, Evening Light

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Granite Slabs, Forest, Evening Light
Evening light breaks through clouds to light trees growing on granite slabs along the Tuolumne River

Granite Slabs, Forest, Evening Light. Yosemite National Park, California. September 12, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening light breaks through clouds to light trees growing on granite slabs along the Tuolumne River

This photograph takes me back to mid-summer days in the high county when I spent a big chunk of time in the Tuolumne Meadows area making photographs in July. It was an odd year — July seemed almost normal, despite the historic drought, except that it looks more like a normal August, with virtually all snow gone, low water in the creeks,   and fairly settled weather.

One evening a group of us joined forces to wander along the Tuolumne River in evening light. Here we stopped at a curve where the river curves around a section lined with large granite slabs. It was cloudy, but a bit of late-day light slanted in from the left.

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 and Meadow

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Shoreline and Meadow
The shoreline of a Yosemite backcountry lake in the late season

Shoreline and Meadow. Yosemite National Park, California. September 10, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The shoreline of a Yosemite backcountry lake in the late season

This lake was our home for a good week this past September. I was among a small group of photographers who spend a week or more doing this every year. This year we camped by the shore of an accessible backcountry Yosemite lake. We woke up every morning to views of this lake and we went to bed in the evening with such images still in our minds.

At times on this visit the light was very subdued. Early on this was because of intense wildfire smoke — some of the worst I’ve encountered in the range. Near the end of the trip a Pacific weather pattern swept through, and in its wake there was a period of several days of raining, cold conditions.

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+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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, Forest, Morning

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Shoreline, Forest, Morning
Morning light and forested shoreline reflected on the surface of a subalpine Sierra Nevada lake

Shoreline, Forest, Morning. Yosemite National Park, California. July 15, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light and forested shoreline reflected on the surface of a subalpine Sierra Nevada lake

It is way past time to share this photograph — it has been sitting here since I made it back in July! The location is a familiar one to those who visit the Yosemite high country and drive across Tioga Pass Road, but sometimes I do stop at those iconic locations and make a photograph, especially in a quiet and uncrowded morning like this one.

Lakes like this one are among the places that often make me wonder if visitors have any idea what they are missing. So many people, for practical reasons or because they don’t know better, come to such places in the middle of the day or in the afternoon. While they are certainly beautiful at any time, these locations are almost (but not quite always!) at their most beautiful at the very beginning and very end of the day. Lakes like this one are often completely still at dawn, sometimes with a bit of fog rising from their surface, and the surroundings are usually quiet and uncrowded. Even in a spot like this one — where I can assure you there were crowds later in the day — I can have the place virtually to myself.

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+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspens, Early Autumn Snow

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Aspens, Early Autumn Snow
Snow from an early autumn storm dusts the high peaks above Eastern Sierra aspen trees

Aspens, Early Autumn Snow. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. October 4, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Snow from an early autumn storm dusts the high peaks above Eastern Sierra aspen trees

I made this photograph on an early autumn morning, on a day with conditions that were either difficult or special, depending on your point of view. After several days of photographing aspen color in the Eastern Sierra, this was my final morning of this particular trip. The weather had mostly been “nice” — perhaps a bit unusually so for this time of year, but in line with the pattern of California drought that was now in its fourth year. But on my last night of this trip an early fall storm blew in, and overnight it snowed lightly on my camp.

Looking at this as an opportunity, I was up early in the morning. I headed up higher into the mountains where I knew there would be plenty of the aspen color that I had photographed during the past few days, but now altered in appearance by this “interesting” weather. It was cold enough that light snow was sticking on the higher peaks, and at my elevation it was that raw kind of weather that is windy and just cold enough to “try to snow.” The overcast softened the light, bringing more illumination to shadows 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 and Amazon.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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