Tag Archives: grove

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

River Bank and Cottonwood Trees

November 27, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A thicket of small cottonwood trees leans toward the Merced River, Yosemite National Park

When I first encountered this riverside thicket of small trees, I half-regarded them as a nuisance, believe it or not. My attention was focused on cottonwood trees on the opposite bank of the river and a bit downstream, and I was looking for a good vantage point where I could set up my tripod to photograph them. While I was intrigued by these closely-spaced trees and their beautiful autumn foliage, my initial orientation to them was affected by how difficult they made it to find a good spot for my tripod with a clear view of the other trees! (Yes, I did eventually find a small spot down by the edge of the water from which I could make that other photograph.)

After passing them I looked back and saw the way that the trees varied from almost perfectly vertical in the middle of the thicket to banding almost horizontally over the river closer to the bank in an attempt, I suppose, to find unobstructed sunlight. I knew there was a photograph in this scene but it was a bit tricky. Framing it the way I wanted required the use of a longer lens, but that introduced depth of field challenges. Initially I saw it as a color photograph, especially since the leaves on these cottonwoods were at their peak of intense autumn gold. However, working on the photograph later, it seemed to me that the color wasn’t the main story in this scene, and that a black and white rendition might do a better job of highlighting the varied yet related forms of those tree trunks, and still capture the beautiful side-light coming from across the river and down the Valley at this very late afternoon hour.

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, Photographs: Yosemite

Cottonwood Trees, Reflection

November 25, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cottonwood trees with fall foliage reflected in the Merced River

Believe it or not, this is the mighty Merced River, draining a vast section of the Yosemite High Sierra that extends all the way to the highest peaks of this section of the Sierra crest. On this late October afternoon, on a dry day during a dry month at the end of the second of two drought years in the Sierra, the river felt in many ways more like a creek. The water moved slowly, gently rippling over rocks in the shallow sections and pooling in the deeper areas where the movement of the water was almost invisible. The contrast between this scene and what the river can do is apparent when your realize that these trees could be standing in very deep water during the peak runoff floods of a wet year.

I had wandered out to this relatively accessible location in the afternoon, drawn by the golden cottonwood trees that were approaching their peak autumn color, the brilliant fall backlight from the low afternoon sun down the Valley to the west, the shadowed granite face beyond, and the possibility of using the river as an element in photographs. I was apparently not the only person with this idea, and when I arrived I found perhaps a half-dozen painters occupying strategic spots on gravel bars, the beach, and along the banks. I made some photographs that included these artists, but I also contrived to exclude them from some of the compositions, including this one that brought together all of those elements that I came here to find.

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

Hiker, Black Oaks, and Meadow

November 23, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A hiker crosses a Yosemite Valley meadow beyond black oak trees with autumn foliage

Yes, yet another photograph of autumn oak trees and Yosemite Valley meadows! It is (or was) the season in late October and I’m still sorting through the photographs. When I first arrived here my plan was to photograph the black oaks as a “natural” landscape without people. So I found a composition that I thought would work and settled in to wait for the folks who were (as is inevitable in the Valley) wandering around in the meadow to finish and move out of the frame. It seemed that every time the view was about to be clear yet another person would arrive and walk into the frame. I finally decided that I might have to make two or more photographs and blend the “person-less” sections to create one image without hikers, so I made a few exposures as two or three people walked across. (I also timed some of the shots so that the people would be hidden behind the oak trees.)

As luck would have it, after I decided on this approach there was a point at which no human figures appeared in the scene, so I do have my natural landscape version of this scene. However, after thinking about it a bit more, I actually like the version with a person in it better! While most of my landscapes are “people-free,” every so often I do one that includes the figures in the frame. I’ve learned a few things about this. First, having a person in the frame isn’t always a bad thing. (Yes, file that in the “duh!” file.) The presence of a human figure can both crystallize the composition and it causes us to relate to the scene very differently – perhaps imaging ourselves being there or perhaps considering what the person in the photograph might be thinking and experiencing. Second, the figure can often be quite small and still change the effect of the image in ways that are much bigger than the small figure might suggest. As an exercise, try to just barely cover the person with your finger. Notice how the greatly the effect of this scene changes?

Photographs: England, Photographs: Nature

Aspen Color, Eastern California

November 14, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Peak autumn color in a small stand of aspens high in a desert mountain range east of the Sierra Nevada

It is no secret that I love aspen trees, especially in the fall, and that I’m a big fan of the aspens along the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada. I photograph them every year, and I have come to know quite a bit about where to find them and how to photograph them in a variety of conditions ranging from sun to clouds and rain to snow. The aspens in this photo are also in California… but just not in the Sierra.

For a while I’ve had the idea to photograph aspens that are east of the range, since I have seen them from time to time while out there, but usually at the “wrong” time of year. This year I had a chance to make such trees the target of some travel, and we went looking for them east of the Sierra between roughly Long Valley and Bridgeport or thereabouts. The specific location of these trees is not all that important, though I’ll say that we came across this stand in some mountains east of the Sierra – as we rounded a bend and dropped into a valley in mostly sagebrush and juniper country, the stunning color of this grove along a small stream bed provided a vivid contrast with the surrounding terrain. We stopped and wandered around the edges of the grove, mostly making photographs of the trees themselves rather than their larger setting. Sierra fall aspen photographers are (sometimes painfully) aware of the ways that aspen leaves can deteriorate in the autumn, including brown or black spotted leaves or trees that go straight to drab dead leaves without passing through a colorful stage. However, the leaves on these trees were among the most perfect I have seen, with barely a blemish and with intense colors covering the spectrum from barely green though golden and on towards orange and red.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: grove

River Bank and Cottonwood Trees

Cottonwood Trees, Reflection

Hiker, Black Oaks, and Meadow

Aspen Color, Eastern California

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