Tag Archives: lakes

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Snag and Talus Field

February 4, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An old snag stands atop a rocky outcropping and in front of a huge talus field, Kings Canyon National Park

During our mid-September 9-day expedition into the Sierra Nevada high country of Kings Canyon National Park we spent the better part of a week camped in this 11,000′ basin full of lakes and trees and rocks. We camped near the outlet stream of a lake located in a narrow section of the valley, with many more lakes beyond our location and a string of them ascending the valley to our south. Each day, from early morning until after dark, was largely spent exploring this landscape and making photographs.

The valley of lakes to our south, of which our lake was the lowest, was plainly visible to us from our camp site, which was situated on a rise above this lowest lake. From here we could look up the canyon across “our lake” and see a string of several other lakes along this creek. A few were easy to see while others further up the valley revealed themselves primarily by surrounding rock and by breaks in the vegetation. Every day, no matter what else we were doing and where else we photographed, we did at least some work around these closest lakes, and I developed a sort of “daily rounds” taking me up one side of the valley to the upper lake and then back down the other, with occasional detours across the middle of the valley. Is I recall, I was making one of those detours when I photographed this tree, located on top of a small rocky knoll in the middle of the upper valley and backed by the tremendous talus field descending from the surrounding ridges high above.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Subalpine Forest, Morning Light

February 3, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light on the trees of a subalpine forest in the high country of Kings Canyon National Park

During September 2013 four photographers spent nine days in a remote backcountry area of Kings Canyon National Park, camped at 11,000′ in a beautiful lake-filled basin and spending our days exploring and photographing the surrounding area. Being there for such a long time, we had opportunities to photograph in diverse light and weather conditions, and to return to subjects more than once.

Nearby there was a large subalpine bowl with a dozen or more lakes ranging from quite large to mere tarns. We made the 15 minute walk to this spectacular location many times. We photographed in evening rain, in overcast, in brilliant afternoon light, and in the early morning. I made this photograph on one of those mornings. I had begun very early, when the sun had not yet risen. At first I photographed in the blue-tinted early light, and then I began to chase the light/shade boundary as it crossed the lakes and surrounding terrain. Eventually the sun rose high enough that nearly everything was in the sun, with the exception of a few glades right up against steep slopes. I decided to head back to camp by skirting the shady side of the bowl, and I photographed this beautiful stand of trees backed by rising hills and more distant forest as I began this walk.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Trees and Granite, Morning Light

January 29, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Brilliant morning light shines on subalpine trees and receding granite ridges, Kings Canyon National Park

Back in September of 2013 a group of four photographers headed off into the backcountry of the Kings Canyon National Park Sierra Nevada for nine days. (It occurred to me today that between the four of us, we have well over a century of experience in these mountains!) We crossed a Sierra crest pass at close to 12,000′ feet, another non-crest pass that was even higher, and then landed in a lake-filled basin where we set up camp at 11,000′ for most of a week. This basin is off the main through trails and the trails that do go here essentially dead-end, so there aren’t a lot of visitors here. Because we remained in one spot we were able to get to know the landscape more intimately, looking more closely at places we might have missed if we had just been passing by on the trail, and returning to photographic subjects more than once in changing conditions and light.

Up the valley from our camp was a series of sub-alpine lakes, surrounded by the quintessential High Sierra landscape of glaciated granite, tiny meadows, small trees, and ponds and lakes. I developed an almost daily loop up towards the upper lake, coming and going by different paths, and I began to get a better sense of the personality of this place. I made this photograph by climbing up a granite spine to a high point where the terrain flattened a bit and afforded a view of the surrounding valley. This photograph was made in the morning, when low angle light was streaming across the top of the farther ridge and backlighting the trees in front of me.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Granite, Water, and Tree

January 22, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A small tree growing in a crack in a granite wall above the reflecting surface of a Sierra Nevada lake, Kings Canyon National Park

I have begun to return to the photographs from the September 2013 9-day backcountry trip into the eastern Sierra of Kings Canyon National Park. Four photographers traveled over two nearly-12,000′ passes to reach a basin full of lakes at 11,000′, where we set up camp and photographed for the better part of a week. By staying in one location we were able to come to know the surrounding wilderness intimately, frequently returning to locations at different times of day and in different weather conditions. Of course, even a week in one valley like this one is not sufficient to truly know it – a lifetime might be necessary for that!

When I return from a shoot like this one I’m always anxious to dig into my photographs and see what I came back with. In the field, while I’m complete focused on each photograph as I make it, I quickly move on to the next thing, and after a week of shooting I certain do not recall every shot. The initial pass through the image files always reveals some photographs that speak to me, and others that seem to have potential. I might work them over for a week or two, but then I tend to put them aside and move on to other things. But I’m not done. Some photographs do not reveal themselves to me as quickly as others, and I’ve learned that when I go back to the original files months or even years later I often “discover” photographs that were there all along, but which somehow escaped my attention. This is one of those, though in this case I think I have some ideas about how it ended up waiting for me to revisit it months later. First, when I made the photograph I knew there was something about these patterns that was photographable – but at the time I recall being a bit challenged by making a composition out of it that did not include some distracting materials above the elements you see here. At the same time, another photograph of a similar subject turned out to be one of those that worked right away, and I think that encouraged me to move on past this one. This week I began to revisit these files and when I saw this one it was almost immediately obvious to me that it would work with his wider crop, which solved the problem of the “distracting materials” that I mentioned above. I like several things about this photograph: its subtle color palette, the strong abstract patterns of cracked rock and green-gray lichen, the very small tree growing in the crack in the rocks.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: lakes

Snag and Talus Field

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Subalpine Forest, Morning Light

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Trees and Granite, Morning Light

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Granite, Water, and Tree

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

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