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

Autumn Aspens, Hillside Grove

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Autumn Aspens, Hillside Grove
A grove of autumn aspens ascends an Eastern Sierra hillside.

Autumn Aspens, Hillside Grove. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A grove of autumn aspens ascends an Eastern Sierra hillside.

If you we thinking that I’d be finished with this year’s fall color photographs by now… well, you’d be mistaken! And this won’t be the last one either. To review, it was a strange color season for me in the Eastern Sierra. On the plus side, I made it up there to photograph, and the colors were more spectacular than in many other recent years. On the not-so-plus side, the pandemic made travel a bit more complex, and wildfire smoke interfered with photography… and breathing!

I made this photograph in a place that I originally thought had mostly revealed what it had to offer. But I stop here every year, look at many familiar things and think there’s nothing new to see, linger a bit, and then start to see elements of the scene that suggest new photographs. This is one of those. I’m sure I’ve looked at this frame in the past, but perhaps the colors weren’t quite right or it was a different time of day. Whatever the reasons, this time it seemed to work.

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

Aspen Branch and Leaves

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Aspen Branch and Leaves
An aspen branch bearing leaves at the peak of autumn color, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Aspen Branch and Leaves. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An aspen branch bearing leaves at the peak of autumn color, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

This is another photograph made during a brief “up close and personal” ramble through an aspen grove that was absolutely full of the widest range of aspen color I have seen — the full gamut of green, yellow, gold, orange, red, and even a few tan or brown leaves.

I enjoy taking a break from typical landscape photography, which tends to focus on the large view and on producing an image of the scene that evokes its reality to some extent, and working these tiny “intimate landscapes” with their immense range of variables. The scene may contain as little as a single leaf and rarely includes more than four or five, and the juxtaposition of the leaves within the group and against the background provides lots of room for experimentation. Here I used a macro lens with a large aperture so that I could could separate the relatively crisp foreground leaves from the amorphous and blurred background.

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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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 Aspens, Brush, and Talus

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Autumn Aspens, Brush, and Talus
A row of colorful autumn aspen trees standing between alpine willows and talus, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Autumn Aspens, Brush, and Talus. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A row of colorful autumn aspen trees standing between alpine willows and talus, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

These trees grow in an area widely regarded as iconic for fall color photography in the Sierra Nevada, though if they appear in the usual photographs at all they are perhaps seen as a small element off to the side in the distance. However, they have intrigued me on their own for many years. Since the first time I visited this place I made a point of walking past and underneath them, and eventually I began to consider how they could be photographed from a slightly greater distance.

These trees constitute a segment of a thin line of trees that travels for some distance, thick and wide in some places and separated by breaks in others. In the best years — and this was one of those — they include all of the potential color shades from yellow through orange to red. But the other elements in this scene also are important to me — the bluish rocks of the hill in shadow, the subtler colors of the brush in the foreground flats, and the dark green of the widely-spaced conifers trying to gain a foothold in this meadowy area.

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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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

Aspen Cascade

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Aspen Cascade
Autumn aspen trees spill down a small valley in the Eastern Sierran Nevada.

Aspen Cascade. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Autumn aspen trees spill down a small valley in the Eastern Sierran Nevada.

There is no escaping the fact that this is an iconic Eastern Sierra fall color subject. Heck, even Apple used it for one of their operating systems! It was a bit of a surprise to me that I ended up here on this year’s abbreviated fall color expedition. I had initially planned to photograph much farther north and perhaps even to the east of the Sierra. However, those plans were derailed after I crossed the Sierra crest via Sonora Pass and dropped into the worst wildfire smoke I think I have experienced. I headed south, thinking it might get clearer as I drove, but it actually got worse. Coming into Lee Vining I could barely make out the near shoreline of Mono Lake in the noxious murk. So I decided that I would just continue south until the air improved.

It wasn’t until Bishop, California that it became tolerable, though it was smoky even there. So I headed into the the Sierra from there and ended up in the drainage in which this is one of the three major forks. I mostly photographed other things, and even when I went here the first time I spent most of my time of photographs of individual aspen leaves. When I returned to my camp after sunset a huge and thick cloud of wildfire smoke descended. I almost packed up and left, but I decided I would see what it looked like in the morning. It was still smoky when I woke up, though some light was getting through, so I chose the sure bet and went to this place. This curving grove of aspens winding its way down a shallow gully to the shore of a lake is a remarkable thing, with quite a lot of color variation from top to bottom.

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 | 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.