Tag Archives: grove

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Hillside Aspen Grove

October 16, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Colorful autumn aspen trees ascend a hillside in Bishop Canyon, California

I love to photograph aspens in soft light, either very early in the morning or in the evening, when the trees are in shadow. This light enhances the colors of the trees and it fills in the shadows, creating an appearance that does not have the stark quality sometimes seen in midday sunlight aspen groves. I waited until the last hour or so of daylight to photograph this area, at which time the sun has already dropped behind the summits of the surrounding peaks.

This photograph takes in a small section of a much larger grove of colorful trees, at every stage from fully green to complete bare. I sometimes like to simply stand for a bit in front of such a grove, staring at the colors and patterns and trying to find small sections that might make a composition. Here I think I was first attracted to the bright leaves on the small trees near the top, but soon I saw the diagonal arrangement of the rows of trees. Each row has its own character. That primary row near the upper part of the frame is at its color peak, but in front of it there is another row of trees that seems to be going more quickly from green to bare. In the background there is a line of much larger trees, with their tall and straight white trunks.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Slender Aspens, Autumn

October 15, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Slender aspen trees with fall foliage grow high on a Sierra Nevada slope

Sierra Nevada aspens come in a tremendous variety of shapes and sizes. On rocky, dry slopes, where the trees seem to eke out an existence in truly marginal conditions, they are frequently small, with skinny branches and sometimes a bit of a haggard look. In other areas, perhaps influenced by the quality of the soil, they have stout trunks but never get very tall, instead growing in bent and twisted shapes. In a few places, often in the bottom of valleys, they may take on the classic aspen shape — tall trees with straight trunks — though this is less common in the Sierra than in some other places. Sometimes they grow very high on rugged slopes, like the trees in this photograph, and while they are relatively straight and shapely trees, they are also very small.

This group grows high on a slope above an area of dense, tall, and thick aspens, and those other trees usually attract more attention with their dense leaves and intense fall colors. But sometimes I almost like these smaller trees more, especially when some of their leaves have fallen and their bare, white trunks are more visible. Even more, I like to photograph them early and late in the day, when the light reflected into shaded areas warms and intensifies the colors and fills in the shadow.s

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Tree Trunks

October 7, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Aspen tree trunks in the first morning light

Frankly, aspen trees are fascinating in a huge range of ways, in all seasons, and in many kinds of light. At the current time of year most of us focus, with good reason, on the annual spectacle of their fall colors — blankets of yellow, gold, orange, and red. But aspens are beautiful when they are bare and they are beautiful when new leaves appear in the spring, and they are beautiful in the middle of summer when their leaves shimmer in the breeze.

The trunks in this photograph are those of “fall color” aspens, and you can see a bit of that color in the background. However, there is another aspect of color in this photograph that I like to consider, namely the range of colors and textures in the bark of these trees. Ideally, we often think of aspen bark as being white. With the right trees and the right light it can, in fact, seem quite white. However, in most cases the bark colors are much more varied, ranging from gray to green to brown. The textures are also quite something — the trees can be almost perfectly smooth or they can be very rough and rugged. The pair of foreground trees in this photograph are an interesting case, especially if you think of aspen trunks as being white. A closer look reveals that the tree on the right has strong yellow-brown-golden tones while the one right next to it is covered with interesting red patterns!

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspens and Rocky Cliff

October 5, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Aspens in full autumn color against a granite cliff in the eastern Sierra Nevada

On this morning I woke up at my 8000′ eastern Sierra camp to temperatures in the mid-thirty degree range and light graupel, or snow pellets. But the clouds looked thin, and the combination of aspens and snow is appealing, so I headed up the canyon to a higher location where I thought that there might be colorful aspens and snow. When I got there, I wasn’t disappointed — the temperature was still down in the thirties, and the light snow continued to fall… and the trees at this location were probably at their peak color of the season.

The color of the trees was intense, but the soft light of the snowy, cloudy weather intensified colors even more. I went to the far side of the lake where I know of an accessible area that is a bit higher than the lake, with my plan being to photograph these trees against the backdrop of broken granite walls, using a long focal length to narrow the boundaries of the compositions and exclude distracting objects. For intense color everything was working in my favor: the peak color of the trees, the muted tones of the background rock, and the effect of the soft light from the overcast skies.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: grove

Hillside Aspen Grove

Slender Aspens, Autumn

Aspen Tree Trunks

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