Tag Archives: lake

Red Tulip, Green Grass

May 29, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

In Memoriam: Joyce Emerson

Red Tulip, Green Grass - A bright red tulip grows among grass and weeds, Seattle, Washington — A bright red tulip grows among grass and weeds, Seattle, Washington

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

Pine Cones and Ice, Reflected Sky

March 28, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pine cones on morning ice, blue with reflected light from the sky, Yosemite National Park.

I’m on a bit of a minor Yosemite run right now, as I’ve found a bit of extra time to get back to my review of the past ten year’s of image files. I had almost completed the task earlier this year, but the work stalled out a few months back somewhere in the spring of 2011. I’m now up to June of that year and hoping to continue the slog!

I made this photograph right about the time that Tioga Pass first opened for the season – not the first day, but very close to it. I had gotten up very early that morning to photograph in the pre-dawn cold near Tioga Pass, and from there began to work my way back to the west towards Tuolumne Meadows. I stopped at a small roadside lake to photograph a larger scene and as I was setting up for that shot I looked down and noticed the newly formed ice with its fractured texture reflecting the morning’s blue sky and supporting a variety of things that had blown down including a couple of pine cones. If you look carefully you can just make out rocks and grasses beneath the ice.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: People, Photographs: Yosemite

Tenaya Lake, January 2012

March 2, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Skaters and walkers on frozen Tenaya Lake, accessible via the still-open Tioga Pass Road on January 16, 2012.

I have been meaning to post this photograph since I made it last month, on January 16, 2012. The serious California drought (or so it seems) of 2012 created very unusual conditions in the Sierra this winter. The Tioga Pass Road (highway 120) through Yosemite National Park usually closes by some time in November, and has been known to close as early as October. The early season this year made it appear that we might have a normal or even heavier than normal winter – early storms near the beginning of October brought a lot of snow to the range and temporarily closed the road more than once. But by December it became clear that this was not going to be a normal year at all, and by the end of the month there was almost no snow anywhere in the range.

A week before this visit I had crossed and re-crossed the pass on a trip to Death Valley. While I appreciated the convenience and shorter drive, I found the odd conditions unnerving. Aside from a few patches here and there, I saw no snow at all, though the seasonal cold had frozen the high country lakes. A week later it looked like a storm or two might finally arrive, so we decided to make the trip up to the Tuolumne area to see the high country in a state that we probably (hopefully!) won’t see again. During the week before this visit, local news stations around California had made this story well known, and they almost all mentioned that people were visiting Tenaya Lake. And, indeed, there were tons of people at the lake when we arrived. There were about as many cars as you might see on an August afternoon. People were clustered along the frozen edge of the lake, were walking along its borders, even setting up tables for picnics on the ice. A few people thought to bring ice skates and they were skating great distances. (Fortunately for us, most people went no farther than Tenaya, and the crowds decreased rapidly after that point.)

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

Ross’s Geese in Flight, Central Valley Evening

February 15, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A large flock of Ross’s geese takes flight in the sunset sky above Central Valley ponds, California.

Yes. More geese. And I’m sure that before the season ends there will be yet more still. (I have some images tucked away in my mind that I would like to try to convert into actual photographs this year if I can get back out to the Central Valley in the right sort of conditions.) The object here was to try to capture the rising flock filling the sky in this beautiful early evening light.

I think I admitted recently that I’m a newcomer when it comes to these birds. Although I’ve spend years in the outdoors of California, I somehow managed to almost completely miss the annual bird migration much less get a remote sense of its scale and beauty. At some point in the past decade or so I had my first real encounter with the birds that gave me a clue that something I needed to know about was going on. It was an early winter evening – I believe it was on the first evening of a long November drive up highway 5 to Seattle. I was well up the Sacramento Valley as twilight arrived, and for some reason I had stopped – probably pulled out at one of the roadside rest stops. I heard the sound and looked up and saw giant flocks of birds (of what type I hadn’t a clue) stretched out against the sky, and that moment stuck with me. Then last year a chance meeting with a colleague at the espresso stand at my college led me to look for the birds more seriously. As we stood in line, my friend mentioned that she had seen my photography and said something about the birds. I asked where they were, if I recall correctly, and she gave me directions to a place a ways south of Sacramento. I had originally had different plans, but the next morning I headed up there very early, arrived to a completely fogged-in road, but the sound of the birds all around me and occasional misty glimpses of sandhill cranes throughout the fog had me hooked. This year I’ve already been out there several times and I’m ready to go again!

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: lake

Red Tulip, Green Grass

Pine Cones and Ice, Reflected Sky

Tenaya Lake, January 2012

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