Tag Archives: granite

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

Morning, Near Olmsted Point

August 22, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Morning light on granite and sparse trees near Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park

This is another photograph from 2011 on a late-July trip to the Yosemite high country along Tioga Pass Road. The photo was made in morning light in the general area of Olmsted Point, where a series of granite domes and ridges lines up roughly parallel to Tenaya Canyon and in the morning the brightly back-lit haze can create a sense of spatial depth and mute the details of the formations further away.

I suppose that backlit trees like this one are a bit of a theme for me – yet another Sierra subject I cannot resist photographing! The central tree is, obviously, just one of many thousands of trees right here but since it was the closest one it served as my subject. The tree is set in granite slabs topped with glacial erratics left behind when the last glaciation ended, and the slabs are mostly very solid, making the it all the more amazing that such a large and upright tree can grow here. Another ridge rises in the middle distance, and beyond it yet another ridge whose details are nearly invisible in the morning light.

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

Trees and Granite, Morning Light

August 18, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

First morning light on trees and granite slabs near Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park.

I made this photograph a year ago, almost exactly, in August of 2011, while on a trip of several days devoted to photographing the High Sierra, mostly in the Tuolumne Meadows area of Yosemite. A year later I do not remember all of the details of this morning, though I recall that I had gone very early to the Olmsted Point area to photograph the glacial erratic boulders and some rugged trees growing on the granite slabs found in the area. Perhaps this was among the first photographs I made, before heading off to shoot my primary subject, since the series it comes from includes the very first light to strike these trees, while its angle was still small enough to hit the trees but not the rock.

When I came upon this photograph in the old raw file archive this week, one thing that struck me is the fact that it does include a Yosemite icon (seen from an iconic angle that is often photographed), yet that icon is almost an afterthought and most certainly not the primary subject of the photograph. I posted something here yesterday about photographing icons (“Photographing Icons or Not”), and one of the ideas that you might take away from that post is that it is possible to see iconic sights in ways that do not necessarily repeat the familiar iconic views. (Not to fear, I have the iconic view of this subject, too.) I’m willing to bet that I was thinking a whole lot more about the warm first light on the foreground trees, the way it contrasted with the cooler blue tones of the deep canyon and shadowed ridges beyond, and the texture and shapes of the foreground granite slabs that are so characteristic of this part of the Sierra.

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

Mount Conness and Ragged Peak, Forest

July 31, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Evening light slants across forest below Ragged Peak and Mount Conness, Yosemite National Park, California.

This photograph was made from the Tuolumne Meadows area with a long lens, and it includes the heights of Mt. Conness at the far right, the lesser prominence of Ragged Peak at the left, a shaded ridge running above the Young Lakes basin, and a closer bit of typical Yosemite forest mixed with a bit of dome-like granite, with sunset light slanting across from the left. By the way, I wondered for some time where the name “Mt. Conness” came from. I finally looked it up during the past year, and I found out that the namesake was Senator Conness, one of the two California senators during roughly the Civil War period – Conness was responsible for the legislation that initially set parts of the current Yosemite National Park aside for protection and preservation. All in all, a person deserving of a peak with his name.

Although photographed here from some distance, I know parts of the landscape encompassed by this photograph quite well, including the visible portions and some that are hidden from sight in this photo. For a number of years I have made a habit of visiting the Young Lakes area at least once each season, often late in the season when the summer crowds have dissipated – though I have also visited very early in the season, and I have the mosquito stories to prove it! Young Lakes lie on the other side of the shaded ridge traversing the center of the photograph, and I’ve often looked up at that ridge from the lakes. I have also hiked up into the valley on this side of the ridge. The trail to Young Lakes crosses the wooded area beyond the sunlit trees and passes through a beautiful semi-meadow area below Ragged Peak, a place where beautiful lupine flowers may be found at the right time of the year and from where one can obtain some panoramic views of a lot of high Yosemite Peaks. On one of my first visits to Young Lakes, it was so late in the season that the backcountry ranger who was patrolling the area apparently had little to do, and one morning we ended up having a very long conversation along the shore of one of the lakes. I remarked that a particular little gully in roughly the area of Ragged Peak looked like it might be interesting, and he shared enough information about the route that I chose to use it rather than the regular trail on my return to the trailhead. Mt. Conness, here the only peak or ridge still fully in sunlight, towers above everything else in this area. I have not climbed it, though I have investigated some trail less areas around its base and I’ve looked at it from almost every side.

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

Forest, Meadow, and Stream

July 13, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A mountain stream winds through a sub-alpine meadow and past lodgepole forest beneath a snow covered peak in evening light, Yosemite National Park.

I know this scene is in Yosemite National Park. I know that it is in the high country along Tioga Pass Road, most likely not too far from Tuolumne Meadows. I know that I made the photograph in the evening after photographing certain other specific subjects in this area. But, for the life of me, I cannot identify the exact location. The peak looks very familiar and I can’t imagine that I had not earlier seen this little bend in the river, but one year after I made the photograph… I’m coming up empty! :-)

Still, there are plenty of things that I do know about this scene. It was late July of the second of two very wet seasons in the Sierra, and the results are plainly visible here in several ways. Even though it was almost August, there is still plenty of snow on the ridge and peak, which must be in the 11,000+’ elevation range, given the alpine appearance of the talus fields. That is a lot of snow for late July! (This year it looked about like that six or eight weeks earlier.) And, not surprisingly given the amount of yet-to-melt snow, the little meadow is still lush and green with early summer growth. And, of course, the stream itself is flowing strongly. I suppose that the main subject of this photograph was and is the beautiful fringe of late-day light on the little grove of trees on the bank of the creek as it meanders through the meadow.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: granite

Morning, Near Olmsted Point

Trees and Granite, Morning Light

Mount Conness and Ragged Peak, Forest

Forest, Meadow, and Stream

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