Tag Archives: granite

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Forest and Granite, Reflections

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Forest and Granite, Reflections
Trees of a sparse forest on rocky ground, reflected in the surface of a subalpine lake

Forest and Granite, Reflections. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trees of a sparse forest on rocky ground, reflected in the surface of a subalpine lake.

Yes, I am still mining the work from our late-summer week in the John Muir Wilderness, during which five of us base-camped and photographed the heck out of the surrounding area. That pleasant late-summer days seem far away now during the cold season. (You can bet that these subjects look a lot different at the moment!) Yet as soon as I look at them it all comes right back to me… and I start thinking about the next trip to such a place.

I made this photograph late in the day after walking up to this rocky little basin, full of lakes and thin forest and surrounded by talus slopes leading up toward the Sierra Nevada crest. The specific location is a small bay extending to one side of a larger lake. The main lake was largely rock bound, with a huge cliff at its upper end. But this side bay was more gentle, surrounded by more level terrain and forest, and protected from wind. Late in the day the shadows from the nearby peaks blocked the sun, and I photographed the trees and rocks on the opposite shoreline in soft light.

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Colorful Rocks, Lichen

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Colorful Rocks, Lichen
A shadowed rock face with red lichen

Colorful Rocks, Lichen. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A shadowed rock face with red lichen

This photograph looks at some details that might be easy to overlook. The rock face was located along a trail we walked on our way to our base camp for nearly a week of Sierra Nevada backcountry photography, and we ended up camping perhaps a half mile from this spot. Most of my focus was on higher terrain, but later during our visit I found the time to walk down-canyon to this spot and photograph this wall.

Several things were striking about this feature. From a personal perspective, I was surprised that I had completely ignore such an interesting source of intimate landscapes when I walked past it the first time. Now, as I revisited it, I realized that the light here was quite special, with some reflections from bright, high peaks across the valley, and additional light coming from the blue sky, with both sources filling in soft light. Here and there small plants found a foothold in cracks, and colorful lichens, ranging from intense reds and oranges through bright greens and yellows grew on the face.

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.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Trees, Granite, Reflections

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Trees, Granite, Reflections
A granite outcropping and trees reflected in the surface of a subalpine Sierra Nevada lake

Trees, Granite, Reflections. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A granite outcropping and trees reflected in the surface of a subalpine Sierra Nevada lake

This scene was along the edge of a lake I visited on several evenings, hiking up from our base camp during our September week in the Eastern Sierra Nevada backcountry to make photographs. The logical starting point for photographs here was near the lakes outlet, where there was a small, rocky meadow and several nice granite outcroppings that extended into the lake. I initially began by photographing there.

But soon the light left that area and I decided to wander around a bit more. Not far away was a small bay extending off from the main body of the lake, and on the other side of this bay several attractively twisted and bent trees stood on and in front of a large granite outcropping.

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Fractured Rock

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Fractured Rock
Detail of a fractured rock wall in the John Muir Wilderness

Fractured Rock. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Detail of a fractured rock wall in the John Muir Wilderness

There are quite a few “photographer jokes” that you’ll hear if you hang out long enough with these folks. (I should make a list sometime!) Some of them come up in answer to the common question, “What did you photograph?” (A variation on, “What are you photographing?” and not totally unrelated to, “Did you get anything good?”) In a lot of cases, when asked the “what did you photograph?” question, you have choices: given a long answer (often the truest response) and make your questioner wish they hadn’t brought it up, give a very short superficial answer, or make a joke. One joke answer among some folks I know and sometimes photograph with is a cheery, “Rocks, water, and trees!”

If you have been watching recent photographs from this location in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, you may be forgiven for noting that in some cases I seem to have been reducing the subjects from “rocks, water, and trees” down to the minimal, “rocks…” This is — obviously! — one such example. It is the sort of thing that most folks would probably not see, since it wasn’t in an obvious place and is in a location where you could easily walk past while looking at other, larger things. But I wasn’t looking for the obvious, at least not only for the obvious, so I stopped here and poked around a bit, discovering a small section on a larger rock fact where the remnants of an old layer of pink rock were gradually breaking away from the underlying gray material. One more thing — when I make a photograph like this one, focusing on some compositional aspect of some small and non-iconic thing, I often think of the photographs of Mike Osborne, one of the original “First Light” photographers and a person with a unique and wonderful way of “seeing” the Sierra Nevada landscape.

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 | Facebook | Email

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