Tag Archives: haze

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

Subalpine Lake, Forest, and Ridges

September 30, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening light on a forested subalpine lake backed by alpine peaks and ridges, Yosemite National Park

When photographing or even when just looking at the world as a photographer, there are certain things that consistently get my attention — and several of them appear in this straightforward Sierra scene. I’m a sucker for layers, and there we have quite a few: the foreground forest trees, the lake with its reflecting water, the forest rising up the slopes on the opposite shore toward a granite dome, and across a deep canyon that is not directly visible there are high, alpine peaks whose features are muted in the atmospheric haze. And, yes, that haze is another thing that I often look for when making photographs.

Like many photographers, I also have an eye for juxtapositions and relationships between shapes and angles and curves and lines. If I recall correctly, the first thing that drew my attention about this scene was not the obvious lake but was instead the relationship between the granite knob just beyond the lake and the shapes of the high ridge in the distance. In fact, I made a series of photographs of those two things at different times of day and from somewhat different locations. All of that aside, the photograph also portrays a more natural sort of light than the warm and saturated light that we often photograph closer to sunrise and sunset.

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

Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne

September 24, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Haze fills the westward view into the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River

Far below the location of this photograph lies one of the greatest travesties in the national park system — the abomination of the Hetch Hetchy dam and reservoir. I now understand the political pressures that led to the damming of this “second Yosemite” — San Francisco’s obsession with water following the 1906 great earthquake and the subsequent fire — but in retrospect this was a monumental offense to the purpose and goals of our great national parks. The Hetch Hetchy Valley had virtually everything that its more southerly neighbor has and which astound people from all over the world — towering cliffs, beautiful domes, forest and meadow along a great river on the valley floor, tall waterfalls. After years of absence from this prostituted place, I returned a year or two ago on an afternoon when I was heading home from the Sierra… and I felt only anger and disgust at the the damned dam.

But here, miles upstream, the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River is still a wilderness, protected from overcrowding by tall and steep walls and a narrow gorge. In the late afternoon I walked a ridge near the edge of the canyon and looked west into the maze of successive ridges that separate creeks that feed the river and made this photograph.

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

Morning Light, Forest and Granite

September 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light on forests and granite terrain along the Tuolumne River on a day of rain and wildfire smoke

After about five days of beautiful late-summer conditions high in the northern Yosemite backcountry we descended to a lower elevation, partly in preparation for our departure a few days later and partly (OK, mostly) so that we could photograph in a different location for a few days. On the morning of our move to the new spot we saw a small bit of smoke in the far distance, over the shoulder of Clouds Rest, but it didn’t seem much different from the other small bits of smoke coming from the usual late-season managed fires. However, as we began our cross-country route down a steep canyon we saw that the smoke had grown and that the plume was now extending over our position. Not long after this, as we neared the bottom of the canyon, the smoke became very thick, blotting out the sun and dropping ash on us. We knew that the fire, no doubt whipped by winds that we experience in our location, had taken off — this was the start of the big “Meadow Fire” that burned in Little Yosemite Valley and which forced a number of back-country visitors to evacuate.

Fortunately, that night it rained — what perfect timing! The next morning we were up to make photographs, and for most of the day we shot between the periodic showers that swept through. Early in the morning I went to a high place to photograph this view down the canyon as light, somewhat obscured by clouds and lingering smoke, broke through gaps in the clouds to strike the forest along the river banks. But further down the canyon another shower was on its way, and before long I had to leave my position here and scramble back to my tent to wait out the next bout of rain.

Morning Light, Forest and Granite

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Calero Oaks and Summer Grass

August 28, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Oak and grass-covered summer hills extending into late summer morning haze

This is a portrait orientation version of more of less the same scene I shared in an earlier photograph from the same mid-August morning hike through a familiar, long time favorite local hiking and photography location. It is an area full of grasslands and oak-covered hills, lush and green for a few months each winter and spring, and then California gold/brown for much of the rest of the year. I have hiked these hills and this specific trail for many years, though it had been several months since my last prior visit — it was good to be “home” again!

This morning was special for a few reasons. There was a wonderful feeling of returning to “my world” following a few months away from this place and my return, only days earlier, from a lengthy trip to the east coast that included more than a week in the very urban environment of New York City. It also turned out, a bit to my surprise, that this hike would bring my annual “autumn is just around the corner” experience — that day each year when something tells me clearly that summer is beginning to wind down and that the beauties of autumn are not far away.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: haze

Subalpine Lake, Forest, and Ridges

Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne

Morning Light, Forest and Granite

Calero Oaks and Summer Grass

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