Tag Archives: landscape

Photograph Exposed, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

A Photograph Exposed: “Shoreline Reflections, Trees and Rocks”

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(“A Photograph Exposed” is a series exploring some of my photographs in greater detail.)

“Shoreline Reflections, Trees and Rocks” — Silhouetted trees and boulders and their reflections lining a flooded section of the shoreline of Tenaya Lake.

This photograph is a personal favorite for a bunch of reasons related to how the photograph came about, the experience of making the photograph, associations with the place, and a print that pleases me a great deal.

I maintain the no photographer’s work is wholly original. What comes closest to being truly original is the personal vision of the artist — that particular way of seeing that the photographer develops. That vision is actually unique, but it is built from experiences and exposure to a visual world that includes the ways of seeing of other photographers and painters and more. I acknowledge and am grateful to a wide range of photographers whose work informs my way of seeing the world.

Among them is Charlie Cramer, who I’m fortunate to count not only as a photographic influence, but also as a friend. Charlie’s way of seeing light appeals to me a great deal, and among the photographs of his that stick in my mind is one of some very similar trees at this exact lake. When I’m in a place where another photographer’s photograph immediately comes to mind I often feel cautious about making a photograph that might look too much like their work — and this one may be an example of “influenced by” but “not like.”

Continue reading A Photograph Exposed: “Shoreline Reflections, Trees and Rocks” →
Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Dawn, Eastern Sierra, Mono Lake

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Dawn, Eastern Sierra, Mono Lake
Dawn light comes to the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada and Mono Lake.

Dawn, Eastern Sierra, Mono Lake. Sierra Nevada, California. July 3, 2007.© Copyright 2007 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dawn light comes to the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada and Mono Lake.

Some years back I visited Mono Lake very early one morning with my brother, Richard, who is also a dedicated landscape photographer. My recollection is that we had arrived separately in the eastern Sierra and somehow ended up meeting here near the town of Lee Vining and heading out to this familiar spot before dawn to make photographs.

I never know exactly what will turn up here. Yes, I can always photograph those tufa towers, but I’m usually often interested in special atmospheric effects: haze, clouds, broken dawn light, the glow on the peaks of the eastern Sierra, reflections in the morning-smooth water. We began by photographing fairly conventional photographs of the tufa towers before the light arrived. It was a cloudy morning, though the deck of clouds was broken, allowing some light to make it through the gaps and a momentary band of light to strike the mountains as the sun came up beneath the far edge of the clouds in the east. I must have made this photograph fairly close to that moment. Most of the scene is in shadow, but bands of light appear on the peaks, and a bit of softer light illuminates the foreground tufa.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Lake, Rocks, and Clouds

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Lake, Rocks, and Clouds
“Lake, Rocks, and Clouds” — Evening clouds reflected in the surface of an alpine lake with a cluster of rocks

I recently revisited this older photograph, one that I had shared in a color rendition in the past, and this time I felt like I wanted to see it in monochrome. This is a sort of scene familiar to anyone who has spent much time in the high country of the Sierra Nevada, that region where lakes, large sub-alpine meadows, sparse trees, and surrounding peaks come together to produce a landscape like no other.

I often visit this lake, typically several times each season. I go there for several reasons, ranging from practical to aesthetic. The lake is not too far from roadways, and sometimes I have just enough time on a late afternoon to park my car, load up my pack, and do the short, steep hike up and over a nearby ridge to get to this alpine world. In fact, Once there I wander this familiar landscape, often revisiting lakes, rocks, streams, and trees that I have visited many times before. As the evening wears on, I know that I should head back to my car before dark, but I am never able to leave quite soon enough, and I end up lingering through sunset and into early dusk, often ending up on the that ridge between me and the road as darkness comes on, and arriving at my car after dark.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Commentary, Photograph Exposed, Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Southern California

A Photograph Exposed: “Two Rocks, Morning, Racetrack Playa”

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(“A Photograph Exposed” is a series exploring some of my photographs in greater detail.)

Two Rocks, Morning, Racetrack Playa - Black and white photograph of two "moving rocks" on the Racetrack Playa at Death Valley National Park. Morning light with unusual clouds, and the Grandstand in the distance.
Black and white photograph of two “moving rocks” on the Racetrack Playa at Death Valley National Park. Morning light with unusual clouds, and the Grandstand in the distance.

Two Rocks, Morning, Racetrack Playa. Death Valley National Park, California. April 3, 2006. © Copyright 2006. G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Moving rocks, lenticular clouds — morning on the Racetrack Playa.

This photograph from Death Valley’s Racetrack Playa is one of the first I made when I began photographing this landscape seriously, and it remains one of my favorites from the park — yet it also carries a flaw that I’ll describe below.

My first visit to Death Valley National Park had been about seven years earlier at the very end of the previous millennium, when I was one of several adults accompanying a group of middle school and high school students on a visit that was to include a short backpack trip in the Cottonwood Canyon area. The story of that trip deserves its own article, one that would include snow, near-hypothermia, winds that blew down tents, a retreat from the pack trip, an attempt to hike down the upper portion of Death Valley, water shortages, a dust storm, a dangerous situation with a bus, and more.

I’ll never forget my first view of Death Valley on that first visit. We arrived in the park after dark, stopping between Towne Pass and Stovepipe Wells at a small campground a few thousand feet above the valley floor, where we set up in the darkness and went to sleep. Having never seen the Valley before, the next morning I unzipped my tent and stepped outside to see the stupendous “oh wow!” landscape of Death Valley and the mountains on the far side in the beautiful morning light. I was hooked, and I’ve been going back annually since then. Continue reading A Photograph Exposed: “Two Rocks, Morning, Racetrack Playa” →