Tag Archives: geology

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

Sheep Peak, McCabe Lakes Basin, Sunset

October 1, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The last light of the day touches the top of Sheep Peak in the McCabe Lakes Basin, Yosemite National Park.

This was a beautiful and fun evening! We were camped at the lower lake in this basin for a few days. The routine, roughly speaking goes something like this: Up before dawn and off to photograph some morning subject until the light goes or the energy wears down; back to camp for breakfast; do camp chores and generally hang out and shoot the breeze into the afternoon; dinner sometime around 3:00 or 4:00; then off to whatever locations is on the agenda for the evening shoot; back to camp after dark. On this evening we all were on the same page and we all headed up to this lake, a few hundred feet higher and no more than a mile from our camp.

The walk was steep but mostly pleasant, at least as long as one went relatively slowly and stayed out of the creek with its willow thickets and instead found a route through the forest nearby. Eventually the route – there is no trail – began to level out at a meadowy area below the lake. This was gave a false sense that the climb was over, but at least the walk up the meadow was very enjoyable, as the small outlet stream twisted through grassy meadow and past the occasional boulder and some trees, with the higher peaks visible above. At the upper end of this meadow was the lake’s basin, with a tall peak on top of the headwall at the upper end, forest beyond the shoreline meadows to the left, and rugged talus slopes and rocky peaks along the right shoreline.

Here we split up and looked for our own shots. As I sometimes do, I found “the spot” and more or less worked it until the light went away. I walked along the thin shoreline meadow, resisting the temptation to just set up and start shooting, and eventually came to this little group of shoreline rocks and trees that I could use as the close element of photographs of the lake and the peaks beyond as the day came to an end.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts when this page is viewed on the web. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

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

Fractured Granite Ledges

August 22, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Exfoliated and fractured granite ledges form patterns in late afternoon light, Yosemite National Park.

While this particular spot happens to be in the neighborhood of Tenaya Creek, similar features may be found throughout Yosemite and in many other parts of the Sierra. These rocks have probably been eroded in just about every way possible. They have been broken away from the underlying rock via exfoliation. The area was obviously glaciated. No doubt freezing water helped to widen the patterns of cracks and break up the rocks.

I made the photograph in late afternoon light when the sun was just barely above a low ridge beyond the upper edge of the photograph. The zoom was cranked out as wide as it goes in order to capture a good width and density of these wonderfully broken up rocks and the trees and other plants that somehow manage to live on and among them.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

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

Granite Domes and Trees, Morning

August 12, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Morning light on trees and glaciated ridges, Yosemite National Park.

It is now 11:23 p.m. PDT on Friday, August 12… and I just realized a few moments ago that I neglected to schedule the posting of a new photograph today! Before I left for Yosemite on this past Wednesday I thought I had placed a photograph in the queue for automatic posting today, but apparently not. As long as I complete this post in the next half hour or so, I won’t miss posting my daily photograph!

I made this photograph early today (Friday, August 12) as the first light was striking the glaciated ridges near Olmsted Point. I had arrived early enough to climb far up on the granite slopes above the famous overlook before the sun came up – I had a plan to photograph some of the solitary trees high on these granite slabs as the first light struck them. I accomplished that, and as I began to descend from this area I decided to make a few more photographs while I was up there. Across the nearby canyon is another ridge that is topped by the glacial erratics, the solitary boulders sitting on top of the rounded ridges and just about anywhere else in this part of Yosemite. The early light was coming across from the left and striking the tops of these ridges, but it had not yet struck the huge face of Clouds Rest, seen behind them.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Textures

Zabriskie Point Gully, Morning Light

April 1, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Morning sun back-lights the dense pattern of folds in a small gully at Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park, California.

In some ways I think this is one of the more subtle and complex of the various photographs I have made that isolate small sections of the Zabriskie Point landscape, especially the eroded patterns of the small gullies below the main viewing area. This photograph, like many in this series, was made after the normal “dawn light” time period, and at this time the sun is higher in the sky. It begins to back-light the tops of the furrows and gullies and the brighter light reflects down into the lower portions of the gully. There are a tremendous number of overlapping ridges and the color variations are quite large, though subtle at the same time. Some areas have a very blue cast, being in shadow and lit almost completely by the open blue sky. Others take on warmer tones, especially if they are illuminated by light reflected from the warm-tones earth. An area of thin clouds was floating above the scene and its shadow slightly softened and muted the light that otherwise might have been quite stark.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Email
Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are 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.