Tag Archives: fork

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

Cathedral Range, Meadows, Evening

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Cathedral Range, Meadows, Evening
Cathedral range and early evening in the Yosemite High Sierra.

Cathedral Range, Meadows, Evening. Yosemite National Park, California. July 15, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Cathedral range and early evening in the Yosemite High Sierra.

For me, this is a quintessential Sierra Nevada scene, and memories such places and sensations go back almost to my first knowledge of the range. One touchstone was many years ago when my father took me up to Tuolumne Meadows (if my hazy memory is accurate) and we passed through such country. I have a very particular memory of stopping at a waterfall alongside the road, where I looked up the stream above that cascade and wondered, without quite understanding what I was asking, what might lie above and beyond my field of vision. Perhaps at about this time I discovered some of my father’s books, including one that was (again, if memory is correct) about a passage along the backcountry spine of the range. The photograph I remember most from that book, a photograph that is still one of my mental models for seeing these mountains, featured a deeply grooved trail heading across a high country meadow toward a distant ridge. Some things never change!

This spot is one that I know well — and it is also easily accessible. But it could be any of thousands of places where water runs between meadow banks and past forests with rocky peaks in the distance, the sum of which draw me back to these mountains every year. There is still a lot of snow on the ground in this and similar places right now, and the water is running much higher. But in a month or two this brief period of abundant green will come to the high country, and you’ll find me there again.

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

Dana Fork, Evening

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Dana Fork, Evening
The Dana Fork of the Tuolumne River curves through subalpine meadows in evening light

Dana Fork, Evening. Yosemite National Park, California. July 15, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The Dana Fork of the Tuolumne River curves through subalpine meadows in evening light

Mid-July, at least in a relatively dry year, as was the summer of 2016, can be the time of the most natural loveliness in the High Sierra. Most snow has melted, the creeks and rivers are flowing, the vegetation is green, the days are long, wildflowers are appearing, and the light is beautiful. If it weren’t for mosquitos, the world would be perfect. (This year July will likely look quite different, and I suspect that there will still be patches of snow on the ground and that the water will be much higher.)

Last July I spent a few days in the Tuolumne Meadows area, a place that is comfortable and familiar to me by now. This time I car-camped, staying in the busy Tuolumne Meadows campground, but heading out early and late in the day to find photographic subjects nearby and as far away as Mono Lake. On this evening I found myself along Tioga Pass road late in the day as sunset approached, so I stopped and wandered out into this intimate landscape of the Dana Fork of the Tuolumne, rock-filled meadows, and forest, with the point of Cathedral Peak silhouetted against the sky in the distance.

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

Dense Aspen Grove

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Dense Aspen Grove
Small aspen trees, packed closely together, with golden autumn leaves, Eastern Sierra Nevada

Dense Aspen Grove. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. September 30, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Small aspen trees, packed closely together, with golden autumn leaves, Eastern Sierra Nevada

While the exuberant colors of large groves of autumn aspens are attractive, there is something about the trunks that is hard to resist, even when the colors may have diminished a bit — or perhaps because the colors are less striking. I know I’m not the only photographer who returns to this “take” on the subject. It is fun and more than a bit challenging to make compositions out of such complexity. Frequently I’ll stop and look at a grove, think “that will make a great photograph,” and then gradually discover that some subtle element is not quite right and the whole thing won’t work. I’m continually surprised that a subject that seems so simple often isn’t.

To a great extent it is a question of balance of several sorts. The complex patterns of trunks cannot be completely uniform or there will be no form to the image. There must be some differentiation in the ways that trunks are grouped and among the angles of branches. But too much differentiation is also a problem. There is a “just right” quality to these compositions that is hard to explain, but which I know when I see it. A bit of “dissonance” can help, too — a little bit of something that seems to step outside the predominant patterns. In this photograph that could be the diagonal branches at coming across from the right, or it might be the group of closer leaves along one side. There is also some sense of depth, and if you look closely you may see a good distance into the more distant and darker areas of the small grove. And aside from the obvious vertical lines, there are three horizontal layers — brush at the bottom, trunks in the middle, and yellow leaves at the top.

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

Autumn Aspens and Boulder

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Autumn Aspens and Boulder
A boulder in the midst of early autumn aspen color in the Eastern Sierra Nevada

Autumn Aspens and Boulder. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. September 18, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A boulder in the midst of early autumn aspen color in the Eastern Sierra Nevada

Besides being an example of relatively bright color, this little aspen scene may reveal a few other things to close viewers. The colors range almost across the entire spectrum of aspen color, from the green or trees that have not yet turned, through the typical brilliant golden-yellow, and in between some orange and even a bit of red. These are rather small trees, growing on very rocky soil, the environment where the trees frequently begin to turn first.

The slope is perhaps not remarkable among many other similar slopes that are also covered with aspens. But for some reason — it may be an accidental turn I took near here years ago — this little section of an east side valley seems special to me, so much so that I have to make a sort of ritual passage past and through it when I’m in the area. This photograph was made close to the middle of September, which seems early for Eastern Sierra aspen color. But after several drought years the trees are not behaving according to the familiar plan. Yet, there is still a lot of green, too, which promises several weeks of developing color to come.

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.