Tag Archives: grove

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

Sierra Aspen Groves, Autumn

October 16, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Aspen groves in varying states of autumn color, eastern Sierra Nevada

This photograph was a bit of an unplanned surprise. (The truth is that quite few aspen photographs are just that — partly because I’m always looking around for places I haven’t photographed before, and partly because one never knows what the aspen conditions will like until arrival on the scene.) I had started my morning with a plan that evolved a bit. Up well before sunrise, my initial plan to was to explore an area of east-facing slopes along the edge of the Sierra where I knew that colorful trees would be scattered about. As I drove to what seemed like the obvious starting point, I thought about a very large grove that I had earlier spotted very high up on these slopes… and as I looked that direction I saw a set of headlights up there! That was all the encouragement I needed to find a narrow a steep track that took me way up high on a ridge from which I photographed those trees at dawn.

When I finished shooting there I took a few minutes to finally eat something and then figured that I would try a “sure bet” location nearby. I drove back down the single-track gravel route, got back on pavement, and headed there. Sure enough, there was a lot of brilliant color in this area. As I drove up the road I spotted rows of aspens at the edge of a meadow, still in soft shaded light, but not seeing a photograph there and with my mind on another subject up ahead, I kept going. Before long I was done with that “other subject” and I decided to head toward a third (and non-aspen) subject, so I turned around and headed back the way I came. As I passed this spot again, something about the light and the trees caught my attention again — mainly the soft effect of light reflected into this shaded grove — so I stopped and made a series of photographs that mostly just “show what is” about these trees.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Pond and Autumn Aspens, Evening

October 15, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A grove of autumn color aspens reflected in an eastern Sierra Nevada pond

I saved my visit to this place for the final evening of the final day of this year’s aspen hunt. Although I had passed by the mouth of this canyon four days earlier, while heading to another location near the start of my trip, I had only glanced in from the main highway — but I could tell, both from experience and from looking, that there would almost certainly be some good color here later on. Although the color change seemed to start on a rather early schedule this year, later on the pattern seemed to become closer to the norm. Color started high, and by the time I made this photograph a lot of the highest elevation color was going or gone. (Not all of it though — even amidst lots of bare trees up high, I still came across scattered high elevation groves full of color.)

As the color transition continues, it moves to successively lower elevations, and some of the most protected east-side canyons can hold color even longer. In the past this has often been a decent late season location for color, but I’ve also been there when the color came and went early, for reasons I could not decipher. So on this day when I actually entered the canyon for the first time this fall, I wondered if the colors that I could see along the stream where it emptied into larger valley below might be all there was… or if the color would continue up higher. It turned out that the colors did continue, and in outstanding form! The majority of the trees had fully or nearly fully changed color, with a few other trees at either end of the transition — some still all or mostly all green, and a few that had gone to bare trunks and branches. Far up the canyon there are flooded meadows, and I made this photograph at the highest of these ponds.

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

Green and Yellow Aspens

October 14, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A grove of green and yellow autumn aspen trees in the eastern Sierra Nevada

Since I just spent some days photographing autumn color in the Sierra Nevada, I’m going to interrupt the continuing series of early September Yosemite back-country photographs to share at least one of these recent autumn photographs. I began in the Tahoe area and this year I followed a path partly dictated by a fall color project that I’m working on, heading south through Hope Valley, then over Monitor Pass and continuing on the Bishop Creek area for a day of shooting before working my way back up into areas roughly around the intersection of routes 120 and 395 near Lee Vining.

As much as we all have “our places” to look for aspens, I was reminded again during this little jaunt that you can pretty much go anywhere in the Sierra or along its eastern slopes this time of year and quickly find tons of autumn color. I have a few favorites, indeed, and I understand that those just discovering the fall colors may want to go to “sure bet” places, but I’m having more and more fun just poking around and finding color in lots of odd little places. This location is very close to an area where many, many people were stopped to photograph some very spectacular color in a well-known place — but here, just a ways down the road, I was the only person shooting as cars whizzed past on their way to those other places.

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

Oak Trees, Winter Fog

August 5, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Winter fog drifts through a meadow to obscure oak trees, Yosemite Valley

The oak trees of Yosemite Valley always have a strong presence in my thoughts of the place. While coniferous trees are undoubtedly far more common, the individual oaks seem to have more character, and this character is strongly influenced by the changing seasons, weather, and light in their typical environments in and around the Valley’s meadows. In the spring they produce a brilliant green color, especially when lit from behind. In the fall their colors, while not as vivid as those of maples, bring a warm golden/brown color. In winter, as the leaves fall away, the structure of the trunks and branches becomes more visible.

In late winter I was in the Valley for a few days in conjunction with the opening of the Yosemite Renaissance exhibit. Often in the winter the Valley’s meadows will fill with ground fog, especially in the mornings, producing all sorts of photographable beauty. This fog is almost alive, often changing suddenly as barely felt breeze moves it to and fro and cause it to thicken and thin. When we arrived to photograph this meadow the fog was very shallow, but it silently thickened and before we knew it the trees were almost obscured, allowing me time for a “barely there” photograph of oak trees with a few leaves still remaining from the previous season — and just as quickly the fog dissipated.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: grove

Sierra Aspen Groves, Autumn

Pond and Autumn Aspens, Evening

Green and Yellow Aspens

Oak Trees, Winter Fog

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