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

Autumn Meadow, Forest, and Peak

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Autumn Meadow, Forest, and Peak
A peak towers above colorful autumn aspen groves at the edge of a meadow in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Autumn Meadow, Forest, and Peak. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A peak towers above colorful autumn aspen groves at the edge of a meadow in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

When it comes to visiting the Sierra Nevada, the past couple of years have been a challenge! Travel was hard in general during the summer of 2020. I managed to get up there briefly in the late summer, but I ran into wildfire issues and had to cancel out of the one backpack trip I had planned. I got to the Sierra a couple of times this season, but on each visit something threw a monkey wrench into my plans and I had to improvise or leave early. During the past few days I managed to get to the east side to see the aspen color. But (yes, here it comes) I hit wildfire smoke south of Bridgeport, and when CalTrans started closing passes yesterday in anticipation of several inches of new snow, I high-tailed it back home.

However, I did see and photograph some aspen color. For the most part, I saw some pretty decent color, with the promise of more to come. There were quite a few colorful trees and plenty of others with hints of color to come over the next couple of weeks. If you can avoid the smoke, it should be good. (It was sad to see many newly-brown trees along Tioga Pass Road on my way home, trees that appear to be suffering from the drought.)

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Aspens and Boulders, Autumn

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Aspens and Boulders, Autumn
An intimate scene of small autumn-colored aspen trees and boulders, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Aspens and Boulders, Autumn. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An intimate scene of small autumn-colored aspen trees and boulders, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

When it comes to Sierra Nevada photographic subjects, I’m probably as susceptible as anyone to the lure of the big landscape — after all, the scale of these mountains is part of what we find so impressive. But I make fewer photographs of those large subjects and far more of odd little bits and pieces that suggest the feelings of the place to me. Many memorable moments in these mountains involve these anonymous places that others might not even stop to photograph. I’m always on the lookout for them, and they form the framework of my history with the range.

As we approach the Eastern Sierra fall color season, scenes from that part of the range are on my mind again. While there are aspens west of the crest, the largest and (to my mind) most impressive examples are on the east side. The color should already have begun, and by the beginning of October the transition will accelerate and spread across the range. For a few weeks the color spreads across the groves, gradually working its way south and to lower elevations before it ends late in the month, setting the stage for the arrival of winter.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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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 Color and Sierra Crest Peaks

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Autumn Color and Sierra Crest Peaks
Early autumn color in a landscape of rock and forest below peaks on the east side of the Sierra Nevada crest.

Autumn Color and Sierra Crest Peaks. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early autumn color in a landscape of rock and forest below peaks on the east side of the Sierra Nevada crest.

This is, as some of you may notice, a portrait-orientation photograph of a scene that I recently shared using the landscape orientation. Why two different approaches, you may ask? That could be a bit of a complicated question, as there are multiple possible reasons. Heck, you might just wonder if I was able to make up my mind! In fact, this scene “works both ways,” I think. The landscape orientation goes with the long horizontal stretch of the distant ridge and the band of colorful aspens at the bottom, and it also reveals some additional color that lies outside of the vertical image to the right. On the other hand, I think that the vertical interpretation may do a better job of presenting the scale of the vertical rise from the foreground to those towering, distant peaks. I could go on, but I’ll end by pointing out that sometimes both orientations prove useful, so I don’t shy away from doing both.

The scene is a long canyon in the Eastern Sierra that rises from the hot, dry terrain of Owens valley, ascends a long river drainage that twists and splits and gradually transitions to subalpine forest, and finally culminates well into the alpine zone with its rocky terrain and high peaks. Canyons like this one can be good places to look for aspen color in the fall — for one thing, because they cover such a large elevation range there is likely to be color somewhere within them over a relatively long period of time.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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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 Color and Sierra Crest

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Autumn Color and Sierra Crest
Early autumn color in a landscape of rock and forest below the east side of the Sierra Nevada crest.

Autumn Color and Sierra Crest. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early autumn color in a landscape of rock and forest below the east side of the Sierra Nevada crest.

Thoughts of autumn have begun over the past few weeks. I can imagine all sorts of reasons. As I have written, that mysterious “something” that indicates that the seasons are changing appeared recently, right on schedule. (I attribute it to changes in light, the angle of the sun, the time of sunset and sunrise, and perhaps a few other things.) Here in the West, it may also be triggered by an intense desire to see the end of the hot, dry conditions that plague us during this time of global climate change. I miss cooler weather!

This, of course, gives rise not only to ideas about where to go to photograph this year’s color, but also to reexamination of autumn photography from prior years. This photograph comes from a few years back, during the relatively wet interval between the previous five-year drought and the current drought. I made my first fall color visit in very early October that year, hitting a few of my favorite places and checking out a few new ones that are less known. This location is more the former than the latter, a very large system of canyons draining the eastern Sierra above Bishop, full of rivers, forests, and plenty of rocky terrain leading to the crest of the range.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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