Tag Archives: grove

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

Four Black Oaks in Autumn, El Capitan Meadow

November 15, 2009 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Four black oak trees with autumn colors in morning light, El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite Valley, California.

This group of trees has achieved near-icon status, having been photographed many times in many ways in many seasons and in a wide variety of lighting conditions by many photographers. (Whew..) Several factors have perhaps led to them being photographed so often. First, the group has some very appealing features, especially their close spacing and the gentle curves of their forms along with their location in an area with a lot of surrounding empty space but still with interesting background further away. Secondly, and probably as a result of the previous factors, they have been photographed often enough that many people are familiar with wonderful photographs of the group by any of a number of well-known photographers. Finally, I cannot ignore the fact that they are only a few feet away from one a very popular place to pull off the road – in fact it is entirely possible to frame up an effective composition while standing next to your car!

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Fall Foliage, Yosemite Valley

November 9, 2009 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Fall color in a meadow near Yosemite Falls – Yosemite Valley, California.

I decided to push the boundaries of “ideal shooting time” on this one – it was made less than an hour before noon in midday light that might often have me starting to take my midday break. I think two things made it possible to shoot this subject in this somewhat difficult light. First, the light coming through the leaves of these black oaks (and to some extent the cottonwoods in the distance) creates an effect that it not typical of midday shooting. Secondly, the deeply shaded cliff walls along the south side of The Valley gave me a background that was not harshly lit. (The bright grasses in the meadow were a bit tough, but I think they are under control here.)

It might surprise some to find out that this landscape image was made using a relatively long lens – a 70-200mm zoom at about 130mm. Here it helped me control the composition – making the trees seem a bit closer to one another and affecting the area of the cliff seen beyond.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Fall Color, Leidig Meadow

November 6, 2009 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Fall colors of grasses, bushes, and trees along the edge of Liedig Meadow and the Merced River with cliff walls in the background, Yosemite Valley.

Yes, I’m still working Leidig Meadow… As I wrote earlier, I love the low autumn backlight and early November colors of trees and meadow at this location in Yosemite Valley. In fact I shot here on both afternoons during my visit on October 31 and November 1. Here the trees are roughly sidelight by light coming up the canyon from the west, and the light is aleady gone from the tall cliffs across the Valley and just to the west of Yosemite Falls.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Edge of the Light – Yosemite Valley

November 3, 2009 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Late afternoon autumn light falls across a grove of trees on the Merced River with the cliffs of Yosemite Fall beyond.

On the weekend of October 31 and November 1 I made my annual “Yosemite Valley Fall Color” trip to The Valley – to photograph autumn subjects including the maple, dogwood, oak, and cottonwood trees. While some say that these trees may not provide the same kind of color found in New England, they still draw me back to the Valley every autumn.

This photograph was made in one of the busiest and most popular tourist viewpoints in the Valley, in Leidig Meadow near the chapel. On a busy high season day, perhaps hundred of people will briefly park their cars here, get out, point their cameras up, and make (another) photograph of Yosemite Falls. In some ways this sounds like just about that last place that I would want to photograph, but I’ve come to like the late afternoon light in this meadow, especially in the autumn as the grasses turn brown, the cottonwood trees along the Merced start to lose their leaves, and the low angle of the sun creates interesting back-lighting and shadows.

I’d like to say that I planned to capture exactly this lighting, with the edge of the sun/shadow line falling just across this band of trees and picking up the small tree to the left of the larger group, but that would be a bit of an exaggeration. In truth, I did plan to shoot the trees against the shadowed background, but I was thinking more about having the background cliffs in shadow than I was about the trees right behind the cottonwoods. So I was shooting something else when I happened to look up and see that these trees were just barely catching the last light and that the small tree on the left was set off from the others – so I quickly set up this composition and managed to make a few exposures before the light quickly faded from the trees.

Like so many lighting effects in landscape photography this was a fleeting moment. Far from being a sedate and relaxed process, capturing “edge” light like this is often a matter of being in the right place, getting exactly the right moment, and often requires not only good fortune but close attention to ones surroundings and very quick work!

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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