Tag Archives: forest

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Aspens and Peaks Above North Lake, Morning

October 15, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Morning light on colorful autumn aspens below the alpine ridges and peaks at North Lake, Sierra Nevada, California.

This was a particularly beautiful morning at iconic North Lake in the Bishop Creek drainage of the eastern Sierra Nevada. While dozens of photographers lined up tripod-to-tripod at the lower end of the lake, I decided to look elsewhere. After spending some productive time walking the road along the shoreline of the lake and searching out some of the smaller and perhaps less-obvious subjects, I saw the conjunction of this very colorful group of aspens at the bottom of the frame, the morning light on the peaks and broken by the passing clouds, and the carpets of smaller aspen trees ascending the higher slopes of Piute Crags. Rather than doing the classic “lake with mountain shot” that we’ve seen so often from North Lake – and it is a wonderful view! – I thought I’d try to more tightly frame these portions of the scene that got my attention.

I made this photograph with what some might regard as a somewhat unusual landscape lens, the Canon EF 135mm f/2 prime. This is a really wonderful lens that is often used for other subjects such as low light photographs of people and even for portrait work. It is a wonderful lens – in many ways not all that flashy, but just a very reliable and quality performer. I’ve written before that I most often use zoom lenses to shoot landscapes – and there are a number of reasons for this that I won’t go into right now – but I also carry a small number of primes when shooting like this, and if I have the time to work more slowly and the composition works for one of the primes I’ll use it instead.

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 Grove, Bishop Canyon

October 5, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 7 Comments

Twisted and leaning aspen trunks in a large grove in the Bishop Creek drainage, Sierra Nevada, California.

These trees are in a grove where I have stopped quite a few times with the intent of making photographs, but never quite seeing what I wanted. I’ve been there on sunny days, and early in the morning before the direct sunlight strikes these trees. This was the first time that I’ve photographed these trees and felt that it was a success – and I think that the different light conditions are the reason. As I made the photograph it was overcast and raining lightly. From moment to moment the amount of light would subtly vary, but it remained soft and diffused due to the clouds and rain.

I also took a lot of time just wandering around in this grove and looking – in fact it would probably be accurate to say that I did more looking than photographing! I actually walked out of the grove a few times, thinking I was done, only to see another potential angle and wander back in again.

The fall color season in the eastern Sierra has become more and more popular with photographers over the past few years, due perhaps to the adoption of DSLR cameras and to publicity about the subject on the web. However, while some places are extremely crowded, others are can still be fairly quiet and uncrowded. And, fortunately, while the crowds seek out the familiar shots it is possible to find less crowded places… even as scores of photographers drive past them on their way to the iconic sites where they will line up side by side to make the same photographs.

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

Tree and Cliff Above Middle Young Lake

September 30, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A tree grows at the rocky edge of a cliff above Middle Young Lake and the forest receding into the late-afternoon western light, Yosemite National Park, California.

Continuing the process of milking my mid-September shoot at Young Lakes for as many photographs as possible, here’s one more. As I wandered around the “side” of the upper lake I saw a meadowy area below the outlet stream that looked interesting, so I followed it to the beginning of a steep drop off towards the middle lake. Here the combination of low-angle back light glancing off or the edges of the rocky outcropping and the distant forest-covered hills fading into the sunny haze caught my attention. It was also interesting to think about the fact that I had just walked past the lake seen at the lower left perhaps no more than 30-45 minutes earlier.

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

Morning, Shoreline of Lower Young Lake

September 25, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Morning sunlight shines through the edge of the forest along the rocky shoreline of Lower Young Lake, Yosemite National Park, California.

When I got up on this late-summer morning at Lower Young Lake, my first goal was to walk around the end of the lake and into the forested area shown along the shoreline in this photograph – but as I reached the lake near my camp I decided to first photograph the shoreline forest and trees from a bit further back. There are, as is probably apparent, several layers to this scene: the reflecting surface of the water with logs and other things below the surface and seen through the reflections, the rocks along the shoreline, behind that the edge of the forest interspersed with a few more boulders and bits of sunlit meadow, and far beyond the rocky face of the ridge that rises behind the lake.

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.