Tag Archives: haze

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Mountains and Lake, Autumn Haze

October 21, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Hazy autumn light at dawn on Mono Lake and desert mountains about autumn light in California.

I’ve written about the “golden” color, the muted quality, its softness, and otherwise tried to put my finger on what it is. I’ve known, for example, that something special happens to the light in the Sierra from late September onwards. But I’ve never been able to quite put my finger on the nature of the change. Is it the angle of the sun, changing weather, the colors of vegetation, or something else? It finally occurred to me — sometimes I’m slow! — after all these years that this is the wildfire season in the state and that this might be an important factor.

It surely is a factor in this early October photograph of morning light over Mono Lake. I’ve been poking around this area and making photographs for years, moving more and more towards images that are about the gigantic spaces and forms of this remarkable lake and its surroundings. On this morning I had gone to a different location, high above the lake, from which I had an overview of much of the lake and out to the east toward the rising sun as that autumn haze filled the air, muted details of the landscape, and filled the atmosphere with warm, golden light.

For decades I have recognized the obvious, that there is something different and special

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

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Dawn, Desert Mountains, Lake

October 5, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dawn haze above Mono Lake and desert mountains

Many people perhaps think first of tufa formations when they think of Mono Lake — and given their novel quality and popularity, who can blame them? But as interesting as those formations are, they are not what first comes to mind for me when I think of this place. Instead, my associations are with immense sky, profound silence, perhaps birds, and, of course, wind. Despite being so close to the Sierra, with its intimate forest and meadow landscapes and towering alpine peaks, this place seems much different.

I made this photograph from a high place early on an autumn morning, when haze that may have come from many sources including wildfires, muted and obscured the details of the landscape, leaving mostly the larger features and forms. The foreground is a bit of the lake surface, and beyond the surrounding basin rises toward a succession of high and barren ridges and peaks as the first light makes the atmosphere luminous.

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

Autumn Evening, Eastern Sierra

October 3, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Hazy evening light on golden meadow, aspen trees, and ascending slopes, eastern Sierra Nevada

When I travel to the Eastern Sierra at this time of year, I always begin my trips with aspen color as my object. But once I get there I often — once again! — find a myriad of other subjects I associate just as much with the fall season. I made this photograph in the evening, not long before actual sunset, as the last sunlight was coming across the crest of the range and sweeping down across the dry eastern slopes. Rounded ridges, broken here and there by rocky outcroppings and scattered groves of trees, ascend toward the monumental eastern escarpment, here muted by autumn haze.

This spot is wild but not wilderness. A small cabin sits in the meadow at the base of the hills, gravel roads cut through the landscape, and at this time of year photographers, hunters, anglers, ranchers, and aspen-seekers follow gravel roads far up these slopes. This is a transitional zone, between the high sagebrush desert to the east and the conifer forest far above, and it is not the same Sierra of granite and conifer forests that most of us associate with the range. But if you travel up and down the east side much, you eventually learn that it is as much “Sierra Nevada” as any landscape.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Forest and Cliffs

September 17, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Yosemite forest, with many dead and dying trees, and cliffs near Bridal Veil fall

In early September, about a week after returning from over a month of international travel — and missing the entire month of August in the Sierra! — I finally got to “go home” to the Yosemite high country for a few days. I camped in Tuolumne Meadows, traveled briefly to the East Side along US 395, and returned home via quick stops in Yosemite Valley, Oakhurst, and a favorite winter bird spot in the Central Valley. It was a quick trip, but just enough to get me back in contact with the mountains. (It also let me take an early look at the upcoming seasonal changes. The signs of fall in the Sierra are clear: corn lily plants dying off and falling over, bilberry reddening meadow edges, little spots of yellow on plants high up on rocky slopes, a few golden willow leaves here and there, and a general sense that everything is slowing after summer’s frantic burst of life.)

I rarely visit Yosemite Valley in the summer, preferring almost any other time to the crowds that go there during the vacation season. Although this was a post-Labor Day visit, and the biggest crowds had departed, there were still lots of people there. After a visit to the Ansel Adams Gallery, where a show celebrating the role of photography in the parks was close to concluding (it included five of my prints), I started to head out of the Valley. As I passed this spot I caught a glimpse of drought-killed trees (with the help of bark beetles), other trees standing tall, and the cliffs around Bridal Veil fall. I noticed it too late to stop… so I took one more loop around the roads of the lower valley and came back to make this photograph in the afternoon light and haze.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: haze

Mountains and Lake, Autumn Haze

Dawn, Desert Mountains, Lake

Autumn Evening, Eastern Sierra

Forest and Cliffs

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