Tag Archives: grass

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Three Trees and Pasture

Image January 14, 2026 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A band of photographers and friends has met in a semi-wild place every New Year’s Day for about a decade. We get join welcome tothe new year, share stories, and photograph birds and the landscape. Until this year we had a streak of good weather New Year’s Days, but we were due for bad weather — and we got it! It wasn’t exactly horrible, but it was rather wet and gray… except for a few moments when the clouds parted enough to allow some light.

These three bare trees are old friends of mine. I’ve visited and photographed them for years. This time I was intrigued by the light on more distant trees, the ominous skies, and the newly green pasture. That winter green is a characteristic of much of California. it must almost seem to those from other places that our seasons are backwards — brown and dry in the summer and lush and green in the middle of winter.

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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Lakeside Meadow, Boulders, and Trees

Image October 26, 2025 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Lakeside Meadow, Bourlders, and Trees — “Lakeside Meadow, Boulders, and Trees” — Before the sun arrives, a scene at the shore of a subalpine Sierra Nevada lake with meadow, boulders, and trees.

The Sierra Nevada is a place of diverse terrain — rugged alpine ridges and summits, gentle meadows, both dense and open forests, streams and rivers, and more. But my favorite places are mostly like this one, where the last trees are about to give way to barren alpine country, and where meadows, running water, and lakes are plentiful.

This scene is typical of that region. It is along the shoreline of a moderate-sized lake at just over 10,000′ of elevation. Away from the meadow and the lake, forests of good-sized lodgepole pines grow, but here in the open it is all about the light, meadows, rocks, sparse trees, and water.

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

Trees and Smoke

Image December 28, 2024 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

I have told the story of this series of photographs before, but here is a reminder in case you missed it. I was in Yosemite for a day of autumn color photography, but when I arrived I found the Valley full of smoke from a managed fire, set to burn off accumulated undergrowth. The Park Service does this regularly these days in autumn. It isn’t pleasant for visitors, but it makes for a healthy forest that is less likely to be destroyed by wildfires in the future. But it does pose some challenges for photographers!

Fortunately, with the right subjects and light it is possible to make photographs in smoky conditions. This isn’t the first time I’ve photographed in smoke, and I have shot actual wildfires in the past. I decided that here the drifting smoke was actually kind of moody, almost like fog except with bright sunlight streaming down from above. Here I centered a tree with autumn leaves inside and arch of thicker trunks.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Broken Branch and Wildflowers

Image October 25, 2024 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

We were camped on a low hill covered with trees — likely an old lateral moraine of some sort. A subalpine lake below our hill was surrounded by meadows, and the wildflowers were still in bloom even though it was late in the season. On several occasions I just wandered slowly around and through the meadow, and on one of those walks I found this broken branch lying on the green grasses next to a few colorful wildflowers.

We had been base-camped at this Sierra Nevada backcountry location for the better part of a week when I made this photograph. Working in a limited area for an extended period reveals details that we miss on shorter visits. With less time I tend to focus on the most spectacular and dramatic elements in the landscape. But given more time I slow down and start to notice the small things like this.