Tag Archives: lake

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

Forest And Meadow, Evening Haze

August 12, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Evening haze settles on the Sierra Nevada above forest and meadow near Lee Vining Creek.

Atmospheric haze and I have a special relationship. ;-) While I love crystal clear alpine air, I’m far more fond of “interesting” atmospheric conditions that involve haze that may partially obscure certain details, accentuate distance contrasts between close and far objects, take on interesting colorations, and even glow when lit from behind. During this early August visit to the Sierra on both sides of Tioga Pass, I encountered some significant haze from a serious wildfire in the Mammoth Lakes area. One one hand, this complicated (or rendered nearly impossible!) certain types of “grand landscape” photographs since the constant brown, smoggy haze isn’t quite what we typically are looking for. However, to me this most certainly does not mean that photography and even landscape photography cannot be done. Not only can it be done, but these conditions can create possibilities that are difficult or impossible to find in more typical conditions. (However, in reality, wildfire smoke is “typical” in the Sierra and many other places during certain times of the year.)

There are a number of ways to use smoke and haze in photographs. In this case I found primary foreground subjects that were close enough that they were not obscured. The haze, however, quickly muted the contrast and color of parts of the scene that were even a short distance away on the other side of the valley. The dark, backlit forms of the near trees stand out against this muted background rather than disappearing into the complex patterns and textures of the more distant forest. The backlight had a few other beneficial effects. It intensifies the colors of the low plants growing beneath and between the trees. It creates a sort of highlighting effect on near and far trees, giving a bit more relief to their textures. And it adds a bit of a glow to that smoke and haze, to the point the further alpine slopes in the upper left show only the barest details.

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

Lake, Granite, and Forest Reflection

July 15, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Granite slabs rise above the reflected shoreline of Tenaya Lake, Yosemite National Park

I woke up on this morning in Yosemite Valley, car camping (as in “camping in the back of my car”) so that I could rise well before dawn, get out of the Valley, and drive over Tioga Pass in the morning light on this first weekend during which the road was open. It had actually opened the previous day, and I had made a ritual midday “first of the season” drive to the pass, but it was in light that was less than inspiring – hence my return at an earlier hour this next morning. It was dark when I left the Valley and the sky began to lighten as I headed up toward highway 120 and the trans-Sierra route.

I stopped along the way in the very early light to photograph lakes and rocks and trees and granite, and by the time I arrived at the shoreline of Tenaya Lake I felt like the light was going. However, the stillness of the water and the slight atmospheric recession produced by morning haze caught my attention and I pulled over. The main draw for me in this composition and a few other similar ones that I did at the same time was the reflection of the sunlit granite slabs ascending from the far shoreline. I also wanted to contrast that hard and bright surface with the softer and darker patterns of the forest beyond and the shaded faces above the forest.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Leaves, First Light

June 21, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

First morning light on aspen trees and fall foliage, eastern Sierra Nevada, California

This past fall I had exactly one day to photograph aspens in the eastern Sierra Nevada. This was a bit odd for me, since I usually spend quite a number of days chasing fall aspen color up and down the east side of the range. But this year my target was a bit further away in Utah, and we merely paused for an extra day on the “east side” on our way to that other state. Fortunately, we hit great conditions, in terms of good aspen color and fine weather that didn’t prevent us from getting up to those trees.

Very early in the morning we headed up to an area that I have photographed many times. There are a couple of iconic photographic subjects at this location, but I mostly got them out of my system some years ago and now I look for somewhat less obvious subjects when I go here. I began by shooting some trees near the outlet stream of a lake, with early morning light behind the trees. After working that tricky but beautiful light for a while, I decided to go around to the far side of the lake to where a large stand of small but densely packed aspens stands at the base of a hillside. I got there before the sun came to this spot, so I quickly schlepped my gear up the hill a ways and into the end of the grove, setting up just before the sun arrived. Before the sun’s rays hit the tree, everything had a distinctly blue tone. As the edge of the shadow arrived, the aspen leaves began to glow more and to cast shadows on the trees in the background. These shadows quickly transitioned from soft and subtle to quite contrasty and sharply defined in a matter of seconds. This photograph was made just as the sunlight arrived but before it became intense, and the soft shadows of the leaves on the slender background trunks lasted just a moment.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Aspen Trees, Boulder Field

June 7, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Colorful golden autumn aspen trees among eastern Sierra boulders.

This is yet another of the small set of eastern Sierra fall color photographs I made this year, almost entirely on this single day in very early October, when we paused here on our long drive to location far east of here. In a typical year, I would regard this very early date in October as being a bit too early for prime aspen color, but we did find some stands of trees that were showing very intense coloration. In some ways this wasn’t a total surprise, as I had seen some very early aspen color a couple of weeks earlier in sections of the eastern Sierra. One wonders what the cause of the unusual schedule of change might have been this year: the very dry preceding winter, global climate change, or simply an outlier in the normal range of variation.

In any case, we made the best use of this single day of eastern Sierra aspen chasing, starting early in the morning close to an eastern Sierra lake where I know I can usually find good color and then working outwards from there. After a midday break we resumed our search in the afternoon, heading up a slightly different route where we found a lot of very bright golden trees. This group was in a location that I return to frequently – an area of very broken granite and large boulders, with trees of various sizes. It is also an area that loses the sun quite early at this time of year, since it lies east of very tall mountains leading upward to the Sierra crest. To my way of thinking, this is a good thing, since I like to shoot in the soft and diffused shaded light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: lake

Forest And Meadow, Evening Haze

Lake, Granite, and Forest Reflection

Aspen Leaves, First Light

Autumn Aspen Trees, Boulder Field

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