Tag Archives: lake

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

From Lake to Peaks

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From Lake to Peaks
Light on a rocky saddle at the upper end of a subalpine lake beneath rugged peaks, John Muir Wilderness.

From Lake to Peaks. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Light on a rocky saddle at the upper end of a subalpine lake beneath rugged peaks, John Muir Wilderness.

This was the view from my “front porch” during a week of backcountry photography in the Eastern Sierra during the summer of 2019, the last backcountry trip I managed before the shutdown cancelled most plans for 2020. Our group of (mostly) photographers camped near timberline in the John Muir Wilderness, photographing the surrounding landscape daily in a wide range of conditions.

Eastside Sierra locations create different photographic conditions than those to the west of the crest. The sharper profile here, as the range rises abruptly for high desert to ridges that can top 14, 000′, is wild and spectacular, and the east-facing escarpment is in the first morning light. But there are challenges, too. For example, scenes often fall into shadow well before sunset. In this location the ridge angles enough to the west and northwest that some sunlight sweeps across the face of the peaks late in the day, and a gap to the west allowed some of that light to fall on the rocky saddle beyond the water at the bottom of the frame.

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

Ledge Meets Lake

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Ledge Meets Lake
A ledge llittered with fractured rocks above the shorline of an alpine Sierra Nevada lake.

Ledge Meets Lake. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A ledge llittered with fractured rocks above the shorline of an alpine Sierra Nevada lake.

This little conjunction of rock and water has fascinated me since I first saw it. The lake is in the eastern Sierra Nevada backcountry, above another lake where a group of us went to photograph for a week a couple of years ago. I have a long acquaintance with this upper lake, having first visited it perhaps a couple of decades ago. It is fascinating how my perception of the place changed over time. From that long-ago first visit I only remember that there wasn’t much in the way of obvious campsites here. On later visits I took in more of the alpine surrounds of this lake, which is set in a high bowl. Over several days of repeated visits on the more recent trip I became very familiar with the rocky terrain around the outlet of the lake.

While I’m not completely averse to photographing icons, I spend most of my photographic time in places like this looking for things that I would overlook without careful attention. Seen this way, there are photographic opportunities almost everywhere I look. In fact, I “saw” this little scene it at least four (and counting!) different ways, several of which attentive viewers may recall.

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

Cirque In Shadow

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Cirque In Shadow
A high country cirque in shadows, surrounded by a landscape of talus, cliffs and late-season patches of snow.

Cirque In Shadow. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A high country cirque in shadows, surrounded by a landscape of talus, cliffs and late-season patches of snow.

Over the past decade-plus I have traveled into the Sierra backcountry almost annually with a group of fellow photographers each summer. We’ve photographed from Yosemite to Sequoia-Kings Canyon and some non-park areas along the eastern edge of the range. Our practice has been to take a day or two to get to a suitable spot where we set up a basecamp and then photograph the heck out of the surrounding area. One plus of this approach, as contrasted with trying to cover more ground by moving daily, is that we get to become more intimately familiar with the rhythms of the place.

I made this photograph a few years ago on one of these trips. We camped in thin forest at a nice high-country lake mostly surrounded by rocky terrain. Over the course of the week we explored the surroundings, gradually uncovering what the area had to offer. This lake is one of several along the course of a small stream coming down from much higher country, and it lies in an east-facing cirque more or less at timberline. The late-season snow field in the talus field attracted me from the first time I saw it, and it was only after several visits that I decided to try photographing it in the deep shade from the surrounding peaks and ridges.

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

Sierra Lake, Submerged Rocks

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Sierra Lake, Submerged Rocks
By the shore of an Eastern Sierra backcountry lake with a ledge of submerged rocks.

Sierra Lake, Submerged Rocks. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

By the shore of an Eastern Sierra backcountry lake with a ledge of submerged rocks.

Recently I have had more than one excuse to go back and revisit photographs from previous years. First, this has been an attractive way to find “new old” work during this time of restrictions on travel. Second, I’m involved in a project (about which I can’t say more at the moment) that required me to spend a lot of time during the past month reviewing photographs from a particular subset of my Sierra Nevada photographs. It has been wonderful to relive a set of wonderful backcountry trips I took since about 2008 and, in the process, “discover” a lot of images that I had somehow left behind.

This is one of those photographs. I’ve often wondered about how it is that certain photographs seem to need to “age” for months or years before they make sense. In this case, I think what happened is that when I considered photographs from this place made on this day that I selected another image, worked my way through it, and then moved on. In essence, this one was “left on the cutting room floor” during that editing process. The scene is a high country lake — which lake hardly matters — where rocks under shallow, shoreline water contrast with the intense aqua color of the deeper water.

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.