Tag Archives: granite

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Buttermilk Range, Morning

October 22, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Early morning light strikes a ridge in the Buttermilk Range, with the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada in the background.

While in the eastern Sierra last week to photograph aspen color again, I detoured away from the trees at sunrise one morning to photograph the first light striking these hills in the Buttermilk Range above Bishop, California, with a steep section of the Sierra’s east escarpment beyond. The light in this area is often spectacular in the early morning, but it can be especially so when there are some clouds in the sky as was the case on this morning. While it was almost completely clear to the west over the Sierra crest, the sky to the east held some broken clouds which cast alternating patterns of light and shadow across the landscape. Here, while the light on the foreground rocky ridge was very intense and saturated, some haze muted the more distant ridge and the shadow from those clouds slightly obscured the lower slopes.

The Buttermilks are yet another example of the range to subjects to be found in the eastern Sierra. Sometimes I head to these mountains with a plan of shooting a particular subject or even a particular place, but this doesn’t always work out. The weather may change or my schedule may change. Fortunately, if the original subject doesn’t work, there are almost always other choices! This small range tucked up against the Sierra above Bishop – like many other similar places along the “east side” – contains a wealth of photographic subjects to explore.

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

Trees and Granite Cliffs, Evening Light

September 30, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Evening sun backlights trees ascending granite slopes in front of cliffs, Yosemite National Park.

This is very similar to a photograph I posted very soon after returning from this trip about a week ago – the previous one was a portrait orientation variation on this landscape orientation version. The beautiful conjunction of trees, granite, and evening light occurred along the Tuolumne River in an area not far from where the river leaves is wide and relatively flat and peaceful path through sub-alpine meadows and enters a canyon that gradually becomes steeper and deeper as it leads to the unfortunate obscenity of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. (I visited that location this summer for the first time in many year, and I found it to be the saddest place that I can ever recall visiting in the National Park System.)

But to leave that gloom and doom behind, this portion of the Tuolumne is spectacularly beautiful! Here the river begins to flow quickly and sometimes wildly across granite slabs, sometimes pausing to flow serenely in more level sections. As I was photographing other more intimate subjects above the river I happened to look up and see this beautiful late afternoon back-light shining through the trees that climbed up towards these folded granite ridges, with the haze-obscured vertical cliffs beyond.

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

Tree in Granite Bowl, Sunset

September 29, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A small tree near the base of a granite bowl is illuminated by sunset light, Yosemite National Park.

I made this photograph in an area alongside the Tuolumne River where large expanses of granite slabs tilt down almost to the river itself. This is a wonderful place for photography: subjects here include everything from the river itself to the granite and the trees and other plants, the light ranges from colorful light reflected from nearby cliffs to sunset and sunrise light to the soft pre-sunrise and post-sunset light.

I had been photographing some larger trees and some trees and plants growing from narrow cracks in the solid rock, but as the sun dropped to near the horizon and the light’s color warmed, I moved over to an area where a line of larger trees marches up the slope between two expanses of granite. From here I spotted this small and stunted tree growing out of nearly solid rock and with a background of curving granite slabs occasionally interrupted by the odd boulder. The photograph was made in just about the very last light of the evening is it slanted across the rocky scene, and the “golden hour” light intensified the subtle colors of the rocks.

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

Evening Thunderstorm Above Shepherd’s Crest

September 27, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Evening thunderstorms tower beyond the ridge of Shepherd’s Crest in Yosemite National Park.

There is a bit of a serendipitous story behind this photograph. We were camped at a high lake in the Yosemite backcountry for several days. On the first day the weather was that typical Sierra blue sky weather that can sometimes go on for weeks – beautiful if you live benign weather, but perhaps less appealing to photographers. On the second day, a few small clouds appeared around noon and by evening were becoming quite nice looking above the higher peaks, so we walked up to a higher lake in the evening and did some photography there. On the third day, the little precursor clouds began to show up a bit earlier – perhaps by 11:00 a.m. or even a bit earlier. This tends to get your attention if you have spent time in the Sierra, since clouds that appear that early may have time to develop into full-fledged thunderstorms.

On the second night, one member of our party had visited another little like above our base camp and reported back that it had photo potential. Others decided to visit it early in the morning on day three, though I photographed elsewhere at that time. But when I saw these clouds I thought it might be interesting to get up to this “other little lake” in the evening. Since the route is cross-country I got directions from another member of the group – basically “head up the rocky area, keeping to the right of the bunch of willows in the creek bed, and then head up to the lake. Two members of the group, Charlie and Keith, headed up before me and I followed perhaps 15-20 minutes later.

The climb was enjoyable – while it was steep, the views just got better and better. I ascended the obvious route up the “rocky area,” saw the willows ahead, passed them on my left, and continued on. I soon realized that this was a mistake since instead of a passable route up the lake I encountered a steep rocky wall. Apparently I missed something in the instructions. I probed around a bit and finally found a reasonably safe route up some ledges, carefully marking my return route with rock duck cairns as I ascended, and finally emerged at the top of the steep section… way up the canyon from the likely location of the lake. It was spectacular, but it wasn’t the lake and Charlie and Keith were nowhere to be found.

When traveling alone I tend to be rather conservative and cautious, so I had set a turn-around time that I knew would get me back to camp before complete darkness. That time now arrived, so I back down the little system of ledges, made a few photographs of beautiful high meadows right below them, and started back down toward camp, leaving enough time to stop to make photographs on the descent.

As I passed back down below the rocky wall, the view opened up in front of me and to my right, and included within this panorama was the full length of Shepherd’s crest, with a huge thunderhead and plenty of virga just beyond the ridge. This photograph was made a few minutes before actual sunset when the angle of the light was quite low and the sunset colors were just beginning to glow.

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