Tag Archives: golden

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

The Edge Of The Grove

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The Edge Of The Grove
Autumn color at the edge of a grove of white-trunk aspen trees.

The Edge Of The Grove. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Autumn color at the edge of a grove of white-trunk aspen trees.

In a recent post I mentioned that I was almost done with fall color photographs for the year. Maybe. Sort of. But no promises. So here’s another one. This grove is a bit atypical for the Eastern Sierra, where we often see small groves of trees that are twisted and bent, and where continuous groves a tall, straight trees are the exception. I’m not certain why this is the case in “my” mountains, but I suspect it has to do with the rugged and often-rocky landscape, the relatively dry climate in parts of the range, and likely other factors. This grove on the eastern edge of the range abuts sagebrush high desert country, and perhaps the more open terrain allows the trees to get more light than they might receive in a deep valley.

This photograph differs from most that I share in that it is a re-working of a photograph that I shared a few years ago. A photograph is not necessary a finished thing, and a given version represents what and how the photographer saw the image at a particular point in time. We change and our way of seeing changes, and when we look back at earlier work it is common to reimagine how we might interpret the subject. Here the changes are mostly along the lines of “tuning up” the image a bit. There’s a slight tightening of the crop, some differences in how the colorful leaves appear, and some small changes to the foreground and the shadows.

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

East Slope Aspens, Autumn

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East Slope Aspens, Autumn
A large grove of autumn aspen trees extends up the lower reaches of the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

East Slope Aspens, Autumn. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A large grove of autumn aspen trees extends up the lower reaches of the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Many of the autumn aspen photographs that we see feature extensive groves tall, straight trees with beautiful white trunks, and sometimes the groves seem to stretch across entire mountains. For the most part, those are not Sierra Nevada aspens! While you can find some similar examples in the Sierra if you look around a lot, most of “our” trees tend to be a bit smaller, and they are often a bit more twisted and gnarly. Some, in fact, are downright small. If you are used to seeing those straight and tall groves… the Sierra may teach you to appreciate different sorts of trees.

However in a few places there are some rather large groves. They frequently show up in places where the aspens have little competition from conifer forest trees — on the tops of some ridges and in some of the sagebrush high country on the eastern flank of the range. This scene is an example of the latter, and the interlocking groves spread across the rise of these hills toward the eastern side of the Sierra in terrain that is otherwise largely open and dry.

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: Central California, Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature

Autumn Wetland Trees

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Autumn Wetland Trees
Trees with autumn golden leaves against a foggy sky in California’s Central Valley.

Autumn Wetland Trees. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trees with autumn golden leaves against a foggy sky in California’s Central Valley.

Yesterday I travelled down the Central California coast to photograph in what I think of as the upper Big Sur region, going as far as about Big Creek. I was originally thinking that I might have a new photograph from that endeavor to share today, but it did not quite happen. (Stay tuned though, I’m sure there will be something eventually.) So today’s photograph is a fall color subject that has been sitting on my computer for a while, awaiting its turn for sharing.

The photograph comes from a beautiful early December day, during the end of the “before times” when we could travel more freely. It was one of my first forays out into the Great Central Valley that autumn, largely to look for migratory bird arrivals but also to photograph the landscape. Light in this place is a tricky thing and can often be challenging. It can range from “blah” flat light through bright and harsh light, to fog so thick that you cannot see through it. There are ways to photograph in all of these, but they aren’t always easy. But every so often nature offers up some just plain beautiful light like I had this day. Diffused sunlight was striking the nearby trees with their autumn leaves, while the more distant sky was darkened and deepened by some fog and haze.

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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Photographs: Nature

Inside the Flower

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Inside the Flower
The interior of a California Golden Poppy

Inside the Flower. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The interior of a California Golden Poppy

Recently I wrote another post that considered some of the characteristics of California’s state flower, the golden poppy, ranging from its ubiquitous appearance throughout the state to the challenges of photographing the blossoms. The color is intense, and so “hot” in the red channel that it is easy to blow out the details of the flower even with a supposedly correct exposure. (Advice to new golden poppy photographers: It is generally better to underexpose by perhaps a half stop or so than to risk blowing out the red channel.)

There are plenty of ways to photograph this flower. You’ll see quite a few photographs made from flower height, some with several of the colorful blooms lined up in the frame. It is possible to photograph them from a higher angle and see into the interior fo the flower, though there are some technical challenges to that approach. In this photograph I managed to find a flower that was open on one side, so that I could do both — photograph from a lower angle and see inside the blossom. I decided here to try to completely eliminate everything that is not the flower itself, leaving a sort of small and very orange floral landscape.

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.