Tag Archives: lake

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Shoreline

December 4, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn colors arrive along the shoreline of an Eastern Sierra lake

This photograph represents a bit of a step back from the more intense Sierra Nevada colors of some of my other fall color photographs. Here many of the colors are muted, and the light is soft. The upper trees have already lost their leaves — early, as a result of the drought — and the foreground plants lining the lakeside marsh have largely gone dormant. A few conifers and some sagebrush appear around the edges of the frame.

This lake in the Eastern Sierra is the location of some spectacular fall color, too. In fact, this photograph intentionally looks away from some peak colors that were occurring nearby on this morning. After photographing so much intense color for several weeks, I think I was enjoying the muted quality of autumn storm light as it began to rain and eventually rain on this beautiful and quiet October morning.

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

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

Shoreline, Forest, Morning

December 1, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light and forested shoreline reflected on the surface of a subalpine Sierra Nevada lake

It is way past time to share this photograph — it has been sitting here since I made it back in July! The location is a familiar one to those who visit the Yosemite high country and drive across Tioga Pass Road, but sometimes I do stop at those iconic locations and make a photograph, especially in a quiet and uncrowded morning like this one.

Lakes like this one are among the places that often make me wonder if visitors have any idea what they are missing. So many people, for practical reasons or because they don’t know better, come to such places in the middle of the day or in the afternoon. While they are certainly beautiful at any time, these locations are almost (but not quite always!) at their most beautiful at the very beginning and very end of the day. Lakes like this one are often completely still at dawn, sometimes with a bit of fog rising from their surface, and the surroundings are usually quiet and uncrowded. Even in a spot like this one — where I can assure you there were crowds later in the day — I can have the place virtually to myself.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspens, Early Autumn Snow

November 29, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Snow from an early autumn storm dusts the high peaks above Eastern Sierra aspen trees

I made this photograph on an early autumn morning, on a day with conditions that were either difficult or special, depending on your point of view. After several days of photographing aspen color in the Eastern Sierra, this was my final morning of this particular trip. The weather had mostly been “nice” — perhaps a bit unusually so for this time of year, but in line with the pattern of California drought that was now in its fourth year. But on my last night of this trip an early fall storm blew in, and overnight it snowed lightly on my camp.

Looking at this as an opportunity, I was up early in the morning. I headed up higher into the mountains where I knew there would be plenty of the aspen color that I had photographed during the past few days, but now altered in appearance by this “interesting” weather. It was cold enough that light snow was sticking on the higher peaks, and at my elevation it was that raw kind of weather that is windy and just cold enough to “try to snow.” The overcast softened the light, bringing more illumination to shadows and intensifying the autumn colors.

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

Backcountry Lake, Dawn

November 13, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dawn sky reflected in the surface of a Yosemite backcountry lake

Another morning from a week of such mornings at this Yosemite backcountry lake. My tent was at the end of a granite slab leading back up from the shore of the lake, so it became typical to arise each morning, crawl out of the tent, grab camera and tripod, and walk the slab and then the meadow beyond to the shoreline for morning photography. In this strange weather year in the Sierra every morning was different. One morning it might be clear, another was filled with thick wildfire smoke, and on yet another it was raining.

This was an in-between morning. There was a bit of wildfire smoke — it never went away completely during our stay — and high clouds muted the morning light on the lake itself. The air was not moving, and was September-cold. First light brought a bit of color to the clouds, reflected in the early morning stillness of the lake.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: lake

Autumn Shoreline

Shoreline, Forest, Morning

Aspens, Early Autumn Snow

Backcountry Lake, Dawn

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