Tag Archives: grove

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Aspens, Boulder Mountain, Evening

May 1, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn aspens in front of rugged landscape of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah

This was an especially beautiful evening on the shoulder of the Boulder Mountain area of Utah. Six months earlier, on our first visit to this state, we had passed over Boulder Mountain early in April, before the spring leaves had appeared on the tremendous aspen groves found here. I imagined that this must be quite a sight in the fall when all of those aspens would inevitably change to yellow and gold and red and orange. With this in mind we planned our fall visit to cross this area again in early October, figuring that this would be about the right time for fall color.

It turns out that we probably missed the absolute peak of color – partly because the change happens on a slightly different schedule in these Utah mountains than in “my” Sierra Nevada, and because the transition seemed to occur a bit early this year, perhaps due to dry conditions earlier in the year. When we arrived we found that at the highest elevations the trees were already devoid of leaves. However, as we passed around the shoulder of the range to turn toward Torrey, we came upon some extensive and beautiful stands of colorful trees just before sunset and stopped to make photographs. This photograph looks across nearby aspens in the shadow of high clouds and beyond to the sandstone terrain in the area between Capitol Reef National Park and the small town of Boulder, an area that we finally got to investigate a few days later after crossing over the high country of Capitol Reef. At the time I made this photograph there was a nice soft haze – my kind of conditions! – and high clouds to the west were creating a lightscape alternating shadows and sun that played across the terrain.

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: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Fall Aspen Color, Boulder Mountain

April 16, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Brilliant autumn aspen color on Boulder Mountain, Utah

I produced a lot of photographs in the state of Utah in 2012. Although I had not photographed there before (as astonishing of an omission as that seems!) I think I did a pretty good job of making up for lost time. I made three visits to the state, one in spring and two in the fall, and spent a total of about 35 days on the road to, from, and within Utah. I plan to go back!

On that first spring visit we drove over the shoulder of Boulder Mountain between the Escalante and Torrey areas before the new spring foliage had yet come to the extensive aspen groves found in that area. Being an aspen aficionado I could imagine what these slopes must be like in the fall when the foliage changes, and we made a plan to try to pass by here again in the autumn. Not being completely familiar with the seasonal patterns in this part of the country, we might have been just a bit late for peak Utah color – in general we saw brilliant aspen color in many places, but it had already passed at the higher locations, and we soon learned that the cottonwood color comes a bit later in the month. So when we left the town of Boulder to follow the road up and over the Boulder Mountain area, we had a combination of some brilliantly colorful groves at the lower and perhaps middle elevations and higher groves that had more or less completely dropped their leaves. That is the scene in this photograph, made in early evening light on a day when there were some high clouds – and the shockingly colorful foreground trees are backed by the bare trunks of winter aspens higher up the slopes of the mountain.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

White Pelicans in Flight

March 23, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of white pelicans crosses the marsh before landing at a San Joaquin Valley wildlife refuge

I believe that I have written in the past about the first time I saw white pelicans in the Central Valley of California. The preface to that story is that I somehow managed to live in this part of California for my whole life without realizing that this valley is filled with an amazing diversity of migratory wildlife every winter, so I’m still “discovering” things that many other take for granted. In any case, I was out in the valley at one of the wildlife refuges on a very foggy morning when it was impossible to see more than a few dozen feet into the murk. I could hear birds, but certainly not see them. I stopped and opened the window of the car to listen, and almost immediately a flock of large birds coasted silently into and out of sight. I was somewhat taken aback and thought for a moment that they “looked like pelicans,” but since I had no idea that such birds would be found here I dismissed the thought. Later that day my friends began to talk about seeing “white pelicans,” and later they showed me where a flock was resting on a small island in a marsh.

This flock arrived late in the day and was again unexpected. We had travelled to the edge a marsh to watch a large flock of Ross’s geese. They were settled in for the afternoon, but we knew that they would begin to fly out as the end of the day approached. This time it was almost completely clear, so it was easy to see this large flock of birds as it silently floated over the edge of the marsh – with almost no flapping of wings, in great contrast to the geese! This time I more quickly figured out what I was seeing and I photographed them as the crossed into the center of the marsh and landed.

Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Forest Ridge, Fog

February 18, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Ocean fog overruns forest-covered ridges in Marin County, California

I made this photograph on a very cold, cloudy, gray, and by most people’s standards, fairly miserable day! It was a morning of murky atmosphere, high clouds blocking the light, and thick ocean fog along the coast and into the coastal forests – and it had stymied most of my attempts to find the sorts of photographs I was looking for. I finally decided to just look around – we call this “scouting” – and I eventually ended up in the hills near Mount Tamalpais State Park in Marin County, where I thought I might get above this gray atmosphere. I sort of succeeded, rising above the coastal fog, but the overall haziness and the high clouds were still a factor.

As I drove up the ridge and past an area of open meadows, the view opened back down towards lower hills with fog swirling round them. The hills were mostly submerged in the fog, but in one area the tops of ridges managed to poke through, though at times they, too, were covered. This is one of a small set of photographs I made here before moving on. In order to get the mood that I wanted to evoke from this subject, I made several particular choices in post production. One was to desaturate the colors quite a bit but to not go all the way to a purely black and white rendition, so the dark areas retain the slightly blue-green coloration of the forest. I also did some work with curves to produce the balance of light and dark that I was looking for.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: grove

Aspens, Boulder Mountain, Evening

Fall Aspen Color, Boulder Mountain

White Pelicans in Flight

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