Tag Archives: leaves

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

Spring Trees, Yosemite Valley

January 7, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

New spring growth comes to a grove of trees in a Yosemite Valley meadow.

This week, in the middle of winter, I have been going through older photographs, both looking for images I missed and deleting some that I no longer need to keep. Among the photographs in this batch is a set that I made two years ago on a spring visit to Yosemite Valley, when waterfalls were flowing and the trees and meadows were just coming back to life.

There are groves of beautiful curving trees like these in a number of meadows in The Valley, and I always love to photograph them when back-light silhouettes their trunks and branches and highlights the new growth high in the trees. On this morning there was just enough haze in the atmosphere to mute the details of the steep cliffs along the far side of the Valley beyond the trees and the meadow.

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

Dogwood Leaves, Spring

January 4, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

New spring dogwood leaves after morning rain along Crane Flat Road, Yosemite National Park.

There is a grove of dogwood trees along highway 120 into Yosemite, between the park entrance and the valley, where I stop several times each seasons. Most recently I stopped there on a quiet autumn evening this past October when the dogwood leaves were turning fall colors. Much earlier in the season I stop to see and photograph the dogwood flowers. I made this photograph several years ago on my first visit to the grove that season, on a rainy morning when the leaves had emerged and the flowers were in bloom.

While the flowers were the main reason I visited the grove on this morning, it turned out that the flower photographs were less interesting, in some ways, than the photographs I made of the leaves of the dogwood trees and of other newly sprouted plants. Not only where the plants young and fresh and green, but the soft light and the drops of water from the light rain intensified the colors and made the light less harsh.

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

Broken Branches

December 16, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

The broken branches of a fallen tree on the ground in the back-country of Yosemite National Park.

These branches belong to what is left of a tree that fell in the area around our campsite in the north east section of the back-country of Yosemite National Park. On a couple of mornings during the time we were there doing photography, I began my morning by wandering a bit through this section of forest, meadow, and dried-up ponds, looking for whatever little miniature landscapes I might find.

Dried and broken branches of fallen and dead trees intrigue me, though they can make very difficult subjects to photograph. Light and color are tricky – too much light and it is difficult to get shadow detail without washing out the highlights; too little light and the subject can go flat and pick up blue tones. And sometimes the patterns are so complex and disorganized as to nearly defy my efforts to make any sort of compositional sense out of them.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Aspens and Cliff Face

November 9, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two aspen trees with a few remaining autumn leaves grow against a cliff near North Lake, California.

I photographed this little scene on my first real morning of aspen photography this season in early October. I arrived quite early at North Lake, driving up the snowed in gravel road right after it had apparently been reopened. It was unplowed but other vehicles had clearly been up there, I have four-wheel drive, and I wanted to see what I would find before too many others arrived later in the day. There were few people there when I arrived, which was a bit unusual since this area is often crawling with photographers, individually and in workshops, at this time of the year. But the fact that the road was still snow-covered and that the storms had affected the aspens seemed to keep people away.

I parked before arriving at the lake, shouldered my gear, and walked up to the lake. I bypassed the popular spot near the outlet stream – been there, done that! – and keep walking along the road that skirts the right side of the lake. Everything was still frozen and it was very cold – and I regretted not bringing my winter boots along! The aspen photography was not quite what I had hoped, but there were other subjects, among them the fresh snow – an unusual sight for early October!

In looking for subjects other than the “regular” views of North Lake – which can be spectacular and well worth photographing, too – I often walk slowly along the lake-side road and keep my eyes open along the rocky cliffs that line it. Because the direct sunlight doesn’t hit this spot until later in the day, it is often possible to find softer morning light and even some light reflected from across the lake. On this morning I found that many of the aspen leaves had fallen or turned brown as a result of the storm, but a few were left and the stark white trunks of the trees against the rocks seemed like an interesting subject.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: leaves

Spring Trees, Yosemite Valley

Dogwood Leaves, Spring

Broken Branches

Autumn Aspens and Cliff Face

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