Tag Archives: last

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Last Beam of Light

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Last Beam of Light
A final beam of sunset light falls across groves of Eastern Sierra aspen groves on an autumn evening.

Last Beam of Light. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

A final beam of sunset light falls across groves of Eastern Sierra aspen groves on an autumn evening.

This is one of those locations that I feel like I should have been done with years ago. It is a somewhat iconic spot with easy access, and I have photographed it many times. But this year’s color transition seemed to follow a different trajectory than I have seen before — perhaps due to the preceding wetter-than-normal year or possibly related to relatively quiet autumn weather. In any case, it seemed like high elevation color came a bit later and overlapped the lower elevation transition more than usual. As a consequence, the color here was unusually interesting during the third week of October, so I reserved an evening to go there and photograph once again.

My plan was pretty simple. I would first visit a nearby area where I expected to find lots of bare trees, and after finishing there I would get myself in position for this location well before the best light arrived. The plan worked, and I photographed these and other nearby groves in the low angle light before the sun dropped below the Sierra crest. As more and more of the scene fell into shadow I began to think of packing up and moving on… but then I saw this one final beam of light slanting across the groves. I had literally only seconds to frame the scene, configure the camera, and make three exposures before the light was gone. In the first the beam was too bright, in the third it was nearly gone… but the middle exposure worked.

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

Desert Mountains and Wash, Evening

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Desert Mountains and Wash, Evening
The last of the day’s light illuminates a wash descending though desert mountains, Death Valley National Park.

Desert Mountains and Wash, Evening. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

The last of the day’s light illuminates a wash descending though desert mountains, Death Valley National Park.

This feels like a “quiet photograph” to me — a desert scene that appears to be almost entirely static. In fact, one of the most powerful desert experiences I have had in the desert comes from moments in lonely, quiet places where it seems that nothing is moving and that it has been that way for a very long while. It is as close to the feeling of time stopping as we’re likely to experience.

The truth is that I made this photograph in a location that is not exactly quiet and still. Very close to my position there were dozens of people lined up to photograph one of the icons of Death Valley. (This particular icon is interesting but not photographically compelling to me, but as I mentioned in another recent post… my perspective can change!) The photograph illustrates another useful idea in photography, that when you are faced with an obvious subject it is still good to look around at all of the other things that might be worthy of your attention.

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

Last Light, Sand Dunes

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Last Light, Sand Dunes
Desert winds blow sand across the lip of sand dunes in sunset light.

Last Light, Sand Dunes. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Desert winds blow sand across the lip of sand dunes in sunset light.

Some things are only at their best for a brief moment. Think of a fresh espresso, a soufflé, or perhaps the half hour of beautiful spring snow between ice and slush. The light in the moment when shadows from distant hills arrive at the edge of sunset light (or its inversion at sunrise) is another such thing. This light does things to the landscape that aren’t seen at any other time of day, but the event may last barely a few minutes.

Near the end of my shoot at this location I turned and saw the colorful, low-angle light coloring the sand and bringing relief to its features. I quickly went to work photographing it, working quickly and instinctively, as I knew that the moment would be brief. In fact, along the left side of this photograph is the the shadow marking the edge of light. A moment after I made this photograph, the light was gone.

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.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Owens Valley Trees, Sierra Nevada, Evening

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Owens Valley Trees, Sierra Nevada, Evening
The last light of an autumn day falls across a group of trees in Owens Valley with the Sierra Nevada in the background.

Owens Valley Trees, Sierra Nevada, Evening. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The last light of an autumn day falls across a group of trees in Owens Valley with the Sierra Nevada in the background.

Landscape photography often feels a bit like hunting to me. I may go to a particular location with a general sense that something worthwhile is likely to happen there — and that sense is often based on some combination of long-developed intuition and knowledge of the antecedent conditions and the current situation. But I often do not have a specific subject or composition in mind. (Sometimes I do, but that is less likely.) In other words, I believe that there is a good chance that I’ll find the sort of thing that appeals to me photographically… so I go to a place at a time because I think the odds are good I’ll find something interesting.

One result is that I have to be ready to discover, change plans, improvise, and respond quickly to whatever I discover. (It also means that there are occasional dead-ends, but I digress…) We went to this spot with something entirely different in mind, but within minutes of arriving I decided that the “something else” was not going to work… and I saw that the line of sunlight coming across Owens Valley was striking this group of trees and that I only had a moment or two to photograph before the light left them. I made an initial exposure in landscape mode, then switched to portrait mode when I noticed more light on the foreground than the background. In the end, I came away with two rather different photographs of these trees — in the landscape version they lie near the bottom of the frame with only more distance subjects above them, while here they are situated beyond the stretch of foreground plants and the distant peaks occupy less 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.

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.