Tag Archives: lake

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

Shoreline, First Morning Light

July 1, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

First morning light comes to the forested shoreline of a Sierra Nevada backcountry lake

Near the end of the summer of 2014 I ventured into the Yosemite backcountry with a group of friends and photographers for a week of landscape photography work, first at a somewhat isolated lake and then near a more popular location. Although I’ve been a backpacker for years, accustomed to slogging along with a big backpack carrying all of my own gear, on this trip we were supported by pack train. In fact, we had stupendous support. All of our non-photographic gear was packed in to the first location. A few days later a pack train returned and moved our gear to the next location. (Meanwhile we hiked a cross-country route to get there, following a trajectory that stock could not use.) And finally at the end of the trip the packers came back again and schlepped our gear back out to civilization. I think I could get used to this — though I still very much enjoy the quiet and slow pace of self-contained backpacking.

We were at the lake for three or four days, long enough go venture beyond the obvious things that one sees when first arriving at a place. We had time to return to subjects and reconsider them a few days later, possibly in different light or at a different time of day. We were also able to push out boundaries outward a bit from the lake itself, climbing a few of the nearby promontories. And, always, we had the luxury of rolling out of sleeping bags before dawn, walking a few steps to the lakeshore, and beginning the day’s work. This photograph was made not more than five minutes from camp as the first light began to work down to lake level.

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

Morning Light, Domes, Lake

June 13, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light on Tenaya Lake, granite domes, and Mount Conness

I have been in a bit of a black and white mood recently. Although most of my photographs today are color photographs, my roots are in black and white. Many years ago that is what I learned to develop and print, all the way back to when my father took me into his home darkroom when I was a very young kid. Until I began to use slide film, virtually everything I shot was in black and white, and so many of my early photographic heroes also worked almost exclusively in monochrome.

I order to render the conjunction of shapes and masses, curves and textures in this complex scene of the Sierra Nevada landscape rising from Tenaya Lake, it seemed to me that black and white was the right choice. I made the photograph in the morning — not “crack of dawn” early, but a bit later, when the sun’s rays were clearing the higher ridge to the right and illuminating elements of the scene right down to the lake itself. The distant mass of Mount Conness is slightly obscured by haze, and a thin layer of bright clouds pass overhead.

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

Granite, Forest, and Lake

June 11, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Granite slabs, mountains, and forest surround Tenaya Lake

This is, no doubt, a very familiar spot to anyone who has spent much time in the Yosemite High Country. It is, of course, Tenaya Lake, the big lake along Tioga Pass Road to the west of Tuolumne Meadows — perhaps the first place where the terrain really seems to fully feel like “High Sierra” in the sense in which I use the term.

Even in the busy season this lake can be surprisingly quiet at certain times. I made this photograph in the morning, early enough that the shadows were still long, but late enough that the sun had lifted high enough above the surrounding peaks to illuminate the granite slabs and the surface of the lake. A bit of atmospheric haze softened the light a bit, and high clouds passed overhead.

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Mono Basin

June 9, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Desert hills, Mono Lake, Paoha Island, and the Mono Basin in morning light

When people think of Mono Lake they often seen to think first of the unusual tufa tower formations found along portions of its shoreline — and the subject of many photographs from the place. The towers are indeed impressive and unusual, and especially in the right light they can produce an almost other-worldly impression. But there is much more to be seen here.

My strongest associations with the lake do not involve tufa towers. Instead the strongest may simply be an impression of the vast space of the basin holding this giant lake, and the immense expanse of sky above — often pure blue and clear, but at times opaque with haze or broken by thunder clouds. There are sonic associations, and the strongest may be the sound of gulls and other birds, especially on a quiet and windless morning. On the morning when I made this photograph I was not at the “usual places” at dawn, but I passed by just a bit later, when the sun was a bit higher but the light was still spreading mostly sideways across the landscape, producing large and dark shadows.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: lake

Shoreline, First Morning Light

Morning Light, Domes, Lake

Granite, Forest, and Lake

Mono Basin

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