Tag Archives: gold

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

Autumn Color Panorama

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Autumn Color Panorama
Eastern Sierra aspen trees in transition from summer to fall color on a cloudy afternoon

Autumn Color Panorama. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Eastern Sierra aspen trees in transition from summer to fall color on a cloudy afternoon

There is a pretty good chance that this will be my final fall aspen color photograph from the 2018 fall season. In some ways the season felt a bit different, but the grand pattern was a familiar one. The slight variations included what seemed like a slightly early appearance of color at high elevations — we saw some pretty decent color a full week before the end of September. The main part of the season seemed relatively typical, though I did find color appearing a bit later (surprise!) than expected in a few places I visited about a week into October. That was my final visit, but I did hear from folks who were still finding green groves at the end of the third week of the month. I don’t want to make too much of these observations, as I’ve started to feel that that general timetable does remain fairly similar

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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 Groves, Transitional Color

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Aspen Groves, Transitional Color
Eastern Sierra aspen groves transitioning from green to autumn gold

Aspen Groves, Transitional Color. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Eastern Sierra aspen groves transitioning from green to autumn gold

The colors in this photograph are somewhat subdued, at least by comparison to what sometimes happens at this location when even more colorful trees are lit from behind as the sun drops toward the Sierra crest late on autumn afternoons. On this day the weather was quite cloudy, and sporadic light rain (and perhaps snow at higher elevations) fell as I photographed. Some cloudiness be very beneficial for photographing these trees, as the softer light takes the edge off of the brightest highlights and tends to fill in the shadows, potentially revealing details that can be lost in harsher direct sunlight.

Although I have not printed this photograph as of today, I imagine it as a rather large print, one that would show both the compositional sweep of the curving groves and the details of the trees. The colors are those of a grove in transition from summer green to winter bare trunks, with a few highlights of intense color mixed with trees that are still partially or even entirely green.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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

Shoreline, Fallen Tree, Autumn Aspens

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Shoreline, Fallen Tree, Autumn Aspens
Beyond a dead tree lying in shoreline grasses, an autumn aspen grove rises up a Sierra Nevada hillside

Shoreline, Fallen Tree, Autumn Aspens. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Beyond a dead tree lying in shoreline grasses, an autumn aspen grove rises up a Sierra Nevada hillside

Trying to find different ways to photograph this well-known subject, here I excluded some of the most characteristic features, included both the near and far shorelines, and placed an old fallen tree in the lower part of the frame. If memory serves, that dead tree has been there for a while, and I may have thought of incorporating it during previous visits. The grassy foreground — with grass growing in the lake — produces its own interesting fall colors as it changes from green to brown.

The grove of brilliantly colored aspens across the lake is, at this point, iconic. Indeed, there are frequently quite a few people photographing here. I arrived at an atypical time of day, and on an afternoon when the clouds may have made the conditions seem unpromising to some. As a result there was hardly anyone else there! The clouds worked to my advantage, as they softened the light coming onto the grove from the left, filling the shadows with a bit more light and avoiding the overly bright highlights that are difficult to deal with in full sun.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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

Curving Aspen Grove

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Curving Aspen Grove
An aspen grove in various stages of autumn color transition descends from a Sierra Nevada ridge

Curving Aspen Grove. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An aspen grove in various stages of autumn color transition descends from a Sierra Nevada ridge

Some of you may recognize this aspen grove as being somewhat iconic — though you probably also know that it is often photographed in a somewhat different way. It is also usually photographed at a different time of day from when I was there — on a cloudy afternoon as a weather front was starting to fill in over the Sierra crest, moving conditions toward the potential for some light rain or even a few snow showers a bit later on.

Once again, I photographed in this soft light rather than in full sun. The direct sun can overwhelm the colors of an aspen grove like this one, while the soft light opens and illuminates the shadow areas and can even make the colors seem more intense, especially when some of that soft light is a bit directional and fills in the color from behind. This grove is rarely all in prime color condition all at once, since it covers a range of exposures and elevations. Here it is quite colorful both at the bottom and the top, though there are clearly areas where the leaves have already dropped.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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 |
Email

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