Tag Archives: lake

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

Boulder-Covered Ridge and Trees, Sunset

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Boulder-Covered Ridge and Trees, Sunset
Gentle sunset light on wilderness trees on a boulder-covered ridge, Yosemite National Park.

Boulder-Covered Ridge and Trees, Sunset. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Gentle sunset light on wilderness trees on a boulder-covered ridge, Yosemite National Park.

You have already seen these trees if you have been following along here in recent weeks. To quickly recap, on this evening in the Yosemite backcountry wilderness I went for a long looping walk out beyond the lake where we were camped. I climbed a ridge beyond the opposite shoreline, and followed its spine over a rounded granite dome before descending back to ward the lake on the other side. It was late in the season, and wildfire smoke hovered far to the west between my location and the setting sun. As the sun dropped toward the horizon its light came through the smoky sky and turned the landscape an intense red-orange color.

I stopped and quickly began to photograph, knowing that these lighting conditions would be very brief. When this happens the process of photography is anything but a slow and considered process. Instead my photography instincts kick in and I tend to work fairly quickly, hoping to get something before the ephemeral light is gone. Rather than perfecting a single “perfect” composition, I may try several different approaches in quick succession, working out the details by making photographs and adjusting. A photograph I shared recently focused on this same scene but it used a wider angle. Here I began to eliminate distractions from the larger landscape by tightening the composition.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Mountain Lake, First Light

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Mountain Lake, First Light
First light touches the top of a ridge under deep blue sky reflected in the surface of a wilderness lake, Yosemite.

Mountain Lake, First Light. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

First light touches the top of a ridge under deep blue sky reflected in the surface of a wilderness lake, Yosemite.

This Yosemite backcountry lake fall just short of having one of my favorite mountain lake features — having more than one outlet stream. I know of a few, including one I have visited that drains on both sides of the Sierra crest. This one isn’t on the crest, instead sitting in a shallow bowl near the upper edge of the sides of a great canyon, surrounded by gently rocky terrain and forest. The actual outlet stream (directly left of my camera position) is far less dramatic than the “almost-an-infinity-pool” outlet seen here.

Beyond the low ridge with the central tree in this photograph lies one of the great river canyons of the western Sierra Nevada. Like all of them, it eventually drains toward the Great Central Valley and then to the Pacific via San Francisco Bay. (Well, except for the not insignificant portions of the flow that are diverted these days.) Because this location is on the edge of that canyon and faces to the west, there are no taller peaks or ridges between it and the Valley and the Coast Range. I photographed this scene as the first sun was beginning to strike the ridge along that far side and early enough that the water was completely still.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

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

Twilight Moon

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Twilight Moon
Twilight moon over a Yosemite backcountry lake.

Twilight Moon. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Twilight moon over a Yosemite backcountry lake.

The last few hours of daylight and the first hour or so after sunset are prime times for landscape photography. (The same is true for the comparable hours around sunrise.) I am often surprised to find myself alone at this time of day, even when I’m photographing near large campgrounds. In the morning everyone is still zipped in their sleeping bags, and in the evening I suppose they are busy eating dinner. I occasionally want to head back into those campgrounds and tell people! But then I remember how much I enjoy the solitude at these extraordinary moments.

This photograph was made in the company of a group of folks, photographers all, who understand. We are out of our tents in pre-sunrise darkness, and we return to camp to attend to our needs for food and coffee hours later. We head out again in the late afternoon, and the last of us stumbles back into camp well after dark, navigating by the light of a headlamp. On this evening I had followed that pattern, doing a wide solo loop around this lake and photographing as the golden hour light came on, then continuing right through to the dusk hours when only a bit of the fading sunset color remained.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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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

Sunset, Wildfire Haze

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Sunset, Wildfire Haze
Trees in Yosemite wilderness sunset light made colorful by wildfire smoke.

Sunset, Wildfire Haze. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trees in Yosemite wilderness sunset light made colorful by wildfire smoke.

This is one more in the series of photographs I made during a few moments of intensely colorful light one late-season evening in the Yosemite backcountry. The physical location (high, with a clear line of sight to the western horizon) and the presence of wildfire smoke created intensely colorful light just as the sun set. It was one of those exhilarating photographic experiences when something quite unusual happens, but it is so transitory that one must act quickly and photograph almost without conscious thought. I was working quickly, relying on instinct, and trying to respond intuitively to the landscape and the changing light. (Having a lot of prior landscape photography under one’s belt helps a lot in situations like this!0

I suspect that the light in the photograph looks almost unreal. It seemed that way to me at the time, too! In this photograph the hazy quality of the atmosphere is more apparent — take a look between the darker trees and toward the more distant granite slope, where details are muted by this glowing haze.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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