Tag Archives: landscape

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

Spring Flooding, Tuolumne Meadows

May 12, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Tuolumne River overflows its banks on a spring evening, Tuolumne Meadows

This is another, slightly different view of a scene that I shared recently, photographed at Tuolumne Meadows on the weekend when Tioga Pass Road over the Sierra crest opened for the 2014 season. As is my habit, I broke free and made it up there to celebrate the beginning of a new high country season. It was a quick trip—a 21 hour 550 mile drive that took me across the range to the Mono Lake area and some nearby sights on the “east side.” Later in the day I reversed course and headed back up to Tioga Pass and began my homeward trip, stopping to spend a good part of the evening in Tuolumne Meadows, where strong wind blew as the golden hour light began to develop.

This scene is full of things that I know well. I have visited the general area of Tuolumne Meadows since I was a child and my father took me and one of my brothers up there on the first camping trip that I can remember. Every spring (or early summer in wet years) when I return I look for this area of the meadow where the Tuolumne River overflows its banks and produces a temporary lake, even in a very dry year like this one. On a number of occasions I have hiked on a trail that crosses from right to left just below the bright granite peak in the upper left, heading for a pass below Ragged Peak and then on to Young Lakes, which lie just beyond that highest ridge. (Just below and to the left of the granite peak lies a beautiful area of subalpine meadow with scattered rocks and extensive fields of lupine.) On this evening there were few people in the meadow, as the campground was not yet open and not many people were still up here so late in the day, so I was able to wait quietly for the clouds and the light to line up just right.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Panamint Mountains, Spring

May 8, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Cloud shadows pass across valleys of spring-green high desert plants in the Panamint Mountains of Death Valley National Park

I like to think of this photograph as one that may offer a more truthful presentation of the character of Death Valley. As photographers, almost all of us to looking for the extraordinary—momentary instances of astonishing light, brilliant color towering clouds, dramatic light, and more. And, of course, there is nothing remotely wrong with that. It is these things that draw us to these places and which drive our search once we get there. We will often put up with, sometimes patiently and sometimes not, hours or days of what some call “blah” light in order to be able to photograph brief instance of something atypically powerful. But we must be aware that what we find and show in this brief slices of time is often special precisely because it is unusual.

A few years back I started thinking more about my relationship with the landscape of Death Valley and the surrounding terrain. I had been focusing on the extraordinary—and I still do—and on the way to such places I often passed through other areas, sometimes without taking the time to think about what I was seeing in those moments. I think that it was partially out of frustration that I arrived at the idea of trying to see these subjects more clearly and try to figure out how to photograph them. After all, I knew—at least once I stopped to think about it—that my love of this places was not limited to just the unusual and extraordinary moments, but that it also included midday quiet in the heat and subtle colors of sage country, a series of simple overlapping ridges, a bit of rock. And once I recognized this I started to think that these things, and not just sunrises and sunsets and impressive formations and unusual clouds, might make worthy subjects if I slowed down and tried to understand them. And this is one of those photographs. There is no single, impressive subject in this frame. Instead we have the almost uniform pale green of the arid mountain plants on an early spring day after rain, when the plants produce a subtle but surprising green coloration that varies as the land alternates between gullies and the tops of low hills and clouds from a cleaning storm move across the landscape.

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

Evening Clouds, Tuolumne Meadows

May 7, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening Clouds, Tuolumne Meadows

Early season evening clouds above Tuolumne Meadows and snow-capped peaks, Yosemite National Park

Another orbit around the sun; another cycle of summer, autumn, winter, and spring; another Sierra Nevada high country summer season begins to come into view. This year’s seems to come early and leaves me with an uneasy feeling—it never really did feel like we had a winter, aside from a few stray storms here and there. But every season is different and who knows what this one will bring. Regardless, Tioga Pass Road through the Yosemite high country opened this past weekend and the high country once again became accessible, as did the eastern slopes of the Sierra. Every year when that happens, the mountains call and I must go. Sometimes, especially when the pass opens later in the season, I may have a few days and I can stay up there and explore a bit more. Other years, like the one, I have to squeeze in a quick visit between other responsibilities. But I virtually always go during the first weekend when the pass opens, and this event marks the beginning of another season that will likely stretch at least into October, when the snows fall again and the aspens change color.

The pass opened on Friday, but I had other plans and responsibilities. I had other things to do on Saturday, too, so that left Sunday. One of those Saturday activities had me returning home at about midnight, and I managed to get to bed at about 12:30… leaving just enough time for three hours of sleep before my 3:30 alarm went off. I was up, stumbling around the house in the dark to dress and make coffee, and in a half hour or so I was on the road to the Sierra. The sun rose as I entered the foothills, where I stopped to photograph some spring oak trees and green grasses, and while it was probably 7:30 or earlier when I reached the park entrance it already seemed like the day was quite far along. I turned east onto the very familiar highway 120, and eagerly watched for special places I know, looking to see how they were developing this year. Was there water in that pond? Early signs of corn lilies? Water flowing in that creek? The Sierra certainly does look dry, but this was masked a bit by the remains of a snow storm from past week, which covered the ridges with white. Eventually I made it across the range and dropped down to Mono Lake and then drove up a quiet east side canyon to sit and listen to the wind for a while before starting back. I made this photograph during the last hour of daylight in Tuolumne Meadows, as the color of the light changed and the clouds of a passing weather front assembled above the crest.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Desert Morning, Light and Shadow

May 2, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Morning light and shadows play across the immense landscape of southern Death Valley as storm clouds build.

This photograph reminds me of the immense scale of the Death Valley landscape. Photographed from high in the Panamint Range very early on a morning when a storm was building—it would later snow in our location—the contrast between the cloud-shadowed foreground and the early morning light in the distant valley emphasizes the vast distances in the scene. The light began closing down essentially right at dawn as the clouds of a Pacific weather front came in from the west behind us. (As I made this photograph light snow was falling on the ridge above and behind my position.) The dark clouds building over our position along the crest of the Panamint Range were beginning to extend out over the Valley and build over each of the ranges extending into the distance.

As I made this photograph the main portion of Death Valley, below us to the left and extending into the lower part of the frame here, had fallen into shadow, along with the range of mountains running along its eastern edge. The clouds had not yet worked their way to the south, and where the Valley turns toward the east there was early morning sunlight still spilling into the lower section of the Valley and lighting distant mountains and arid salt flats and atmospheric haze. Even further in the distance some thickening clouds are visible above a single very distant peak.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: landscape

Spring Flooding, Tuolumne Meadows

Evening Clouds, Tuolumne Meadows

Desert Morning, Light and Shadow

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