Colorful autumn leaves along the northern shore of Lake Tahoe, California
As part of a project that I’m working on I spent a few days photographing and exploring in the greater Lake Tahoe area in early October. I’ve gone to Tahoe for years, but mostly in the winter for cross-country or Telemark skiing or in the summer for family trips, back when we would occasionally get a cabin up there. Oddly, my experience with the lake in the fall was almost nonexistent.
So this trip was part of a process to fix that omission. I spent time in some of the surrounding areas where there can be some spectacular autumn color and I spent one full day circumnavigating the lake. It was on that day that I paused at the north end of the lake, just inside the California border, to photograph these colorful trees against the deep blues of the sky, mountains, and lake.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
A giant leaf with brilliant fall colors, photographed lying on the ground
I have no clue what kind of leaf this is, and the location where I found it gave no hints. Usually if I find such a thing I can just look up and see the tree from which it came, but when I looked up from this leaf I could see nothing nearby with leaves even close to this one.
The leaf is huge — in my recollection it was well over a foot long. It was on the ground between some cacti and/or succulent plants in a desert garden at the Huntington. The colors were wild, and if there had been a tree full of huge and intensely colorful leaves like this one I would not have missed it! Initially I was attracted by the bright yellow color and the size, but the closer I looked the more I found that the other surprising colors caught my attention — bits of green, a spot of purple, and red highlights along some of the vein structure.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Lines and curves on tropical plant leaves at a Southern California botanical garden
We were recently in Southern California for a holiday visit to “our kids,” and once the food-focused festivities had ended (though they never completely end!) we moved on to other family adventures in the Southland. On the day after Thanksgiving we headed up to Pasadena to visit the Huntington Library and its museums and gardens. I had not visited this place before, though I was well aware of the Huntington wealth from reading about the California Railroad Barons, composed of Huntington, Hopkins, Crocker, and Stanford, names that Californians may be familiar with. (There is a group of four peaks in the “Recesses” area of the Sierra that are named after them.) Suffice it to say that Huntington was clearly a 1%-er among 1%-ers!
We visited several gardens while we were in Pasadena. I wasn’t there primarily for photography, though I usually travel with sufficient gear of the right sort (a small mirrorless system) that I can do real photography when the opportunity presents itself. While waiting for others I happened to see these beautiful big leaves and I made a few quick exposures, including this one. There are many things to like about these leaves as a subject: The sit on a boundary between realistic depiction and abstraction of form and line, their color is beautiful, they catch light in such interesting ways.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
“Autumn Leaves, Reflection of a Monolith” — The face of El Capitan is reflected in the surface of a autumn leaf-filled pool along the Merced River
A book could be written about this photograph, but I promise to keep it shorter than that. The book would include chapters on the role of luck in photography, the importance of patience, knowing places well, looking at things other than the most obvious, not forgetting to look at the obvious as well, the pleasure of finding like-minded friends in such places, the importance of wandering around slowly, and more.
Every autumn, right around the end of October, I like to go to Yosemite Valley to photograph fall subjects. This mostly means the fall colors of cottonwoods, black oaks, big leaf maples, and dogwood trees – though it also includes the beautiful brown, rust, golden, and tan colors of autumn meadows. It also includes the magical fall light of the Sierra. I’ve never been able to quite put my finger on just what it is that makes this light so special, but I am certain that it is different. When the timing works out just right – as it did on this visit – the first snows of the season might have fallen, and there will be at least a dusting along the rim of the Valley. The Valley slows down in other ways at this time of year, too. The visitors to the Valley are different. There are fewer in general, and especially there are fewer of those who might seem to be checking another goal off the list, and more who genuinely know and love the place. Only the committed – or the poor and RV owners – stay in campgrounds, so you can just show up and get a camp site. Interestingly, although there are far fewer people, I’m much more likely to run into folks I know, which seems to be one of the special pleasures of this recent visit.
As I photographed during this trip, I more or less followed the light and my intuition around the Valley. I might get an idea to go shoot some subject, and along the way I would find something else worth shooting… and many other things worth remembering for a later visit. One of the things on the mental list was a single isolated dogwood tree sitting back in a dark section of forest off to the side of the roadway. I passed it several times, each time thinking about coming back and photographing it, and I finally made it there late on my final day in the Valley. I parked – and no one else at all was around – picked up my gear and walked off into the woods. This light in the shadows along the base of the Valley cliffs changes very slowly, so there was no hurry to make a photograph before light went away and I just poked about slowly, looking at the tree from various angles and considering other subjects in the area. I made a few photographs, and just as I finished a car pulled up and I saw that it belonged to a couple of friends.
I wandered back over that way and after the requisite wise cracks and good-natured insults we realized that all three of us had the same idea to photograph on the other side of the road among trees along the river bank. So, still moving at a relaxed pace and talking as we walked, we headed off towards the river through trees and brush. Along the shoreline I came to a spot where a few leaves littered the surface of the water in a tiny, still cove along the edge of the river. This familiar granite monolith stands not far away, and I found that I could, if I put tripod feet in the water, get both the leaves and its reflection in the frame. I made a few photographs and then wandered off to photograph leaves and grass and some trees and more of the river. Eventually, the light began to fail, and I climbed a small hill and started back to my car through the trees. I happened to look up – yes, sometimes I forget to look up for a moment – and saw that the intense sunset light was striking the granite… and it occurred to me that I might just barely have time to get back to that spot where I had photographed earlier and put those leaves into the reflection of this transformed scene. Fortunately, I knew exactly what lens to use, what aperture to set, and where to locate the tripod, so I could move quickly and efficiently to make the photograph before shadow rose from the bottom of the cliff.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
