Tag Archives: granite

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Alpenglow, Trees, and Granite – Upper Young Lake

July 22, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 9 Comments

Alpenglow light on trees growing among granite boulders below glacially carved cliffs at Upper Young Lake.

This is one of my favorite locations in the Yosemite back-country and, in fact, in the entire Sierra Nevada range. This beautiful sub-alpine basis contains three lovely lakes and is surrounded by varied terrain that includes distant views, peaks and ridges towering above, lodgepole pine forests, meadows small and large, and an open view to the west that often provides stunning light late in the day.

As is usually the case, I was camped at the lower Young Lake – this time for several days of photography – and I had headed to the upper lake late in the day to do some evening photography. I have photographed there quite a few times, but I still haven’t come close to exhausting the photographic potential of the place. On this evening I knew that I wanted to be ready to photograph the golden hour light, but I was also interested in the smaller groups of trees that grow among the granite boulders and I wanted to see what might develop as alpenglow struck the glacial slopes above the lake.

There is a small, fun twist to the story of this visit to Upper Young Lake. I took a semi-cross-country route to the upper lake from my camp at the lower lake, and because I knew that I’d be returning alone in deep twilight or even after dark, on the hike up I was concentrating intensely on fixing a series of landmarks in my mind for the return hike. I was so single-minded about this that I made it all the way to the lake and my first intended subject (a small shoreline tree) without looking around much. It was only a moment after arriving that I got out of focus-on-the-route mode and looked around. I had walked right past the campsite of a couple of photographers without even seeing them, much less saying “hi.” Turns out that the photographers were John Sexton and Anne Larsen. After exchanging greetings and conversation, I went about my business of shooting along the edge of the lake. (If I recall correctly, John was shooting nearby as I made this exposure.)

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

Boulders and Trees, Lower Young Lake

July 18, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Subalpine forest strewn with granite boulders in morning light, Lower Young Lake.

This photograph comes from late in last year’s backpacking season, on a mid-September trip to the Young Lakes Basin. As I have previously written, this area is a beautiful one to explore and is doubly beautiful for photographers since it is open to the western evening light. I made this photograph in the morning and not far from my campsite at the lower of the three Young Lakes. This sort of scene is no doubt familiar to anyone who has spent much time in the Sierra Nevada high country and has come to know these areas of mixed trees and meadows among fields of large granite boulders. I found this particular scene by leaving the trail behind and exploring more widely around the shoreline of the lake.

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

Rocky Shoreline, Lower Young Lake

July 12, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 5 Comments

Morning light shines through the forest on the rocky shoreline of Lower Young Lake, Yosemite National Park.

The three Young Lakes are among my favorite places in the Yosemite back-country, and I visit them pretty much every summer. As I did when I made this photograph, I most often to in the last season – I like to visit after Labor Day weekend, when the crowds begin to diminish, the weather is a bit cooler, fall colors begin, and everything in the Sierra seems to slow down in anticipation of the coming winter.

On this visit I camped for something like three nights at the lower lake, and thus had time to photograph throughout the basin at different times of day. On this morning I got up early as I usually do, and spent a good part of the morning photographing along the shoreline of this lake, starting in the area near where most people camp and where the trail passes along the shoreline. A bit later I crossed the outlet stream and followed the rocky shoreline around to the far shore where the forest opens into rocky meadows near the main inlet stream.

In the photograph, the early light is coming from behind the trees in the shoreline forest and glancing off the tops of the boulders on the shore and in the shallow water. There were two photographic challenges in making this photograph. First, the dynamic range between the brightest sunlit spots on the rocks and the darker areas in the forest is extreme. In some cases I might resort to blending multiple exposures as a way to deal with this issue, but here I was able to recover enough detail from a single frame. The second issue relates to the color of the light. Specifically, while the sunlit areas have a fairly warm quality, the light in the shadows on the rocks and in the shaded areas of the forest turns out to be distinctly blue in a photograph. In fact, these areas end up looking much more blue than you would think if you were there – this has to do with the way our minds process what we see to make it more like what we think it should be… if that makes any sense. In any case, the decisions here ended up being about how much blue would be the right amount.

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

Late Afternoon, Tenaya Lake

July 8, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Ice covers the surface of Tenaya Lake on the day of the mid-June opening of Tioga Pass Road as afternoon clouds cluster around the summit of Mount Conness, Yosemite National Park.

After the wild sunset-illuminated versions of this scene that I’ve posted recently, I thought it might be a relief to post something more subtle! This photograph was also made on the evening of June 18, the day that Tioga Pass Road opened for the 2011 season. A bit earlier I had photographed along the shoreline of Tenaya Lake – the ice-covered area in the lower portion of this image – where I had juxtaposed melting ice, deep blue water, and interesting clouds. When I finished there I had a decision to make – whether to head back up toward the pass, continue to photograph around the lake, or try to get a shot of Mount Conness from Olmsted Point. Since I had been in contact with a client concerning Mount Conness photographs just a few days earlier, I decided to try that third choice.

When I arrived at Olmsted, conditions were a bit unpromising. Clouds had come up over the Sierra crest and Conness was completely obscured. In addition, a certain type of gloomy haze and cloudiness was taking much of the energy out of the scene. Clouds to the west were washing out the light, too. Many times I don’t give up immediately in situations like this, at least not until I’ve spent a bit of time trying to get a sense of where things might be headed. (Ultimately on this evening that turned out to be a good decision, as near sunset one of the most intense displays of Sierra evening color occurred… but that it a story I’ve already told in earlier posts.) As I watched, the clouds around Conness began to move a bit and every so often a bit of the tip of the mountain would poke through. During one of these moments, a bit of light filtered through the high clouds from the west and glanced across the slopes of Polly Dome and struck the upper reaches of Medlicott Dome.

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