Tag Archives: granite

Marmot Poo (Morning Musings 9/25/14)

September 25, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Proof that I have to be able to laugh at myself sometimes… I spent 10 days photographing in the Yosemite backcountry at the beginning of this month. At one of the locations we visited there is a large and beautiful granite bowl with tons of potential photographic subjects. At one point I was high on a ridge above the bowl, photographing small features in late-day light, including exfoliated granite slabs, tiny trees growing from narrow cracks, colorfully stained rock, and more.

Partway through the evening’s work I found a little divot in the granite, in which a small clump of grass grew. It was surrounded by colorfully stained and glacially polished granite, with interesting cracks and texture cutting through it at various angles. The low angle sun raked across the short clump of grass and created a shadow that stretched across the granite surface. It seemed like an obvious photograph of the “intimate landscape” type, and I spent some minutes working it and making a series of photographs in both portrait and landscape orientation, and trying various crops of this little scene.

Although I had admired the file earlier while scanning through the hundreds of images I brought back from this trip, it wasn’t until today that I finally got to it for serious post-processing work. I opened it up, converted the raw file, brought it into Photoshop and began to work on it. I liked those angles angled cracks and the intense color of the stained rock, and the short blades of grass cast shadows across the polished granite in just the way I remembered.

But wait, what is that lumpy shadow below and to the left of the grass? NOOOOO! There is a marmot turd in the little cleft in the rock! You’d think that Your Intrepid Photographer might have seen that while composing the shot, but no…

Morning Musings are somewhat irregular posts in which I write about whatever is on my mind at the moment.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Late Season Shoreline

September 25, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Brilliant late-season red bilberry carpets shoreline meadows around a Sierra Nevada lake, Yosemite National Park

As I have written elsewhere on more than one occasion, every August I begin to pay attention to hints that summer will end and that autumn is on its way. Early in the high country summer everything is in a state of rapid change — plants are in a hurry to take advantage of a short growing season and the availability of runoff water, and that water itself flows everywhere. After the explosion of early season growth and the production of flowers and cones things slow down, and at some point in August a feeling of quiet and stability begins to take hold.

The hints of change that I look for range from almost immaterial — a feeling about the sound of wind or the angle of light — to quite objective. In the latter category are changes that occur in the cycles of plant life. Corn lily plants change from green to yellow and gold and then to brown, and topple over. A few yellow leaves begin to appear on willows and even the aspens. But one of the strongest signs for me is the appearance of the red bilberry leaves in clear areas in the forest and near the edges of lakes. While the autumn bilberry leaves do not appear to be all that colorful in regular light, when backlit they turn the ground a gaudy range of colors from yellow and gold to bright red.

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

Cliff, Slabs, and Sunset Tree

September 19, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Hazy evening light slants across steep granite cliffs and slabs and trees

This was not quite the very last photograph I made on my recent 10-day Sierra sojourn, but it was close. Our exit from the backcountry was scheduled for the following morning, and camp busy-ness (and general end-of-trip laziness) would mean no morning photography the next day, so I went to nearby area of beautiful granite slabs and canyon views and went to work, photographing on into the evening light and eventually stopping only after the sun had set.

We often hear that the vast majority of visitors to Yosemite only visit The Valley, and that they regard that small but spectacular place as being the whole of the experience of the park… and that they are entirely wrong. In a sense I am grateful that most visitors do not crowd into the high country in the same way they do in The Valley, even though a part of me is disappointed that they miss so many other astonishing beauties. I cannot think of a juxtaposition of cliff and slabs and trees in the Valley that is more beautiful than this spot, especially in the evening when the last rays of the sun shine up this valley and illuminate cliff edges and the branches of trees.

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

Morning Light, Forest and Granite

September 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light on forests and granite terrain along the Tuolumne River on a day of rain and wildfire smoke

After about five days of beautiful late-summer conditions high in the northern Yosemite backcountry we descended to a lower elevation, partly in preparation for our departure a few days later and partly (OK, mostly) so that we could photograph in a different location for a few days. On the morning of our move to the new spot we saw a small bit of smoke in the far distance, over the shoulder of Clouds Rest, but it didn’t seem much different from the other small bits of smoke coming from the usual late-season managed fires. However, as we began our cross-country route down a steep canyon we saw that the smoke had grown and that the plume was now extending over our position. Not long after this, as we neared the bottom of the canyon, the smoke became very thick, blotting out the sun and dropping ash on us. We knew that the fire, no doubt whipped by winds that we experience in our location, had taken off — this was the start of the big “Meadow Fire” that burned in Little Yosemite Valley and which forced a number of back-country visitors to evacuate.

Fortunately, that night it rained — what perfect timing! The next morning we were up to make photographs, and for most of the day we shot between the periodic showers that swept through. Early in the morning I went to a high place to photograph this view down the canyon as light, somewhat obscured by clouds and lingering smoke, broke through gaps in the clouds to strike the forest along the river banks. But further down the canyon another shower was on its way, and before long I had to leave my position here and scramble back to my tent to wait out the next bout of rain.

Morning Light, Forest and Granite

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: granite

Marmot Poo (Morning Musings 9/25/14)

Late Season Shoreline

Cliff, Slabs, and Sunset Tree

Morning Light, Forest and Granite

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