Tag Archives: granite

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Glaciated Granite Landscape

October 7, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Looking through evening haze into the depths of a deep canyon of glaciated granite, Yosemite National Park

Near a lake in the Yosemite backcountry where we camped for five nights were many examples of the common Yosemite glacial granite slab terrain, with sparse trees and glacial erratic boulders on top of both broken granite and smooth glacial polish. The highest nearby area of this sort attracted us and we visited it many times in both morning and evening hours.

This area, which featured a couple of low domes separated by a saddle of broken granite, sat near the edge of a very large river canyon that leads away to the west. The photographic possibilities here could keep one busy for many days — even more than the 5 or so days we had to work here. In the evening the light of the setting sun shone up the length of the canyon, causing the atmosphere within to glow and lighting all sorts of domes and ridges within the canyon. Sitting at the edge of this huge open area we also had extensive views of further and higher mountains. On this evening I climbed to the top of one of the domes and pointed my camera down into the depths of this canyon, shooting across the top of a nearby ridge on which scattered trees were still in the last light.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Lake, Rocky Shoreline

October 6, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light and reflections of the rocky shoreline of a subalpine lake surrounded by forest, Yosemite National Park

At first glance a subalpine lake may look much like many other subalpine lakes. And, in fact, these lakes do tend to share some of the same sorts of features if they are in the same terrain and at the same elevation. Along the shoreline trees may march right down to the water’s edge, boulders may interrupt the shoreline and extend into the lake, there may be islands, it is often flat and marshy near the outlet stream, and higher slopes will often rise above the lake.

However, spend time at any such lake and it inevitably begins to reveal its own unique personality. Spend a lot of time at one lake — a period of at least a few days — and things that you overlooked at first become more obvious and may even come to be part of what defines the lake’s character. As soon as we arrived at this lake we all gravitated to the west shore in the early morning, from which we could photograph back across the lake and into the morning light, letting it fringe nearer trees against the backdrop of the shadowed trees on the other side. But further exploration — otherwise known as “wandering slowly around the lake many times” — began to reveal all sorts of possible alignments and juxtapositions. Here the morning light casts shadow patterns beneath the surface of the reflection water, and the near and far rocky areas seem to connect across the lake.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Small Tree and Pothole

Image October 3, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A small tree grows out of a pothole in stained granite rock, Yosemite National Park

The more time I spend wandering around and photographing on granite domes and slabs, the more astonished I am at the trees and other plants that find ways to survive in the most marginal of conditions. Often we look at the trees growing on these domes and perhaps fail to consider how old they are — a three-foot tree here may be a mature tree — or how tenuously they seem to find sustenance in small cracks, potholes, and low spots where a bit of soil collects. In fact, as the trees and other plants take hold they seem to create their own soil as needles and old growth decay in these places.

Somehow this little tree managed to take root and survive in a small pothole in otherwise smooth granite, no doubt taking advantage of the fact that the bit of soil in the pothole holds some moisture. In typical form, the tree appears twisted and stunted, being perhaps only a couple of feet long and with a trunk that seems to have had a hard time making up its mind about which way to grow. The tree does not stand up from the rock at all, instead lying flat on its reddish surface.

Note: Edited slightly in 2024.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Last Light, Yosemite Backcountry

October 2, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Final evening light on the face of a granite dome in the Yosemite National Park backcountry

As I have mentioned previously while sharing this set of photographs from my early September Yosemite backcountry photography, the particular ridge from which I made this photograph drew me back repeatedly. I climbed it to photograph in the early morning and late in the evening, and in conditions ranging from clear to hazy to scattered clouds. While the larger scene might be regarded as “typical Sierra,” it was possible to juxtapose and pick out all sorts of interesting elements, and the changing light transformed this landscape in surprisingly striking ways.

This was a particularly beautiful evening, and the light and landscape offered up many possibilities over the time I was there — from very late afternoon right on past the sunset. This was one of my final exposures of the evening, and the very last beams of red sunset light were coming up the canyon from the west after passing through a lot of low-level atmospheric haze in order to softly illuminate the edges of the granite slopes along the top of the near ridge as the rest of the scene was already falling into “blue hour” light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: granite

Glaciated Granite Landscape

Lake, Rocky Shoreline

Small Tree and Pothole

Last Light, Yosemite Backcountry

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.