Tag Archives: leaves

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Two From the Waterpocket Fold Area

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I’m going to double-up here and share two photographs in a single post — both are from the Waterpocket Fold (Strike Valley) area just to the east of Capitol Reef National Park.

Waterpocket Fold, Utah
Waterpocket Fold, Utah

Waterpocket Fold, Utah. Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. October 22, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Utah’s Waterpocket fold, viewed from high in the southern part of Capitol Reef National Park

The “Waterpocket Fold” is a gigantic geologic formation in Utah, a good portion of which runs the length of Capitol Reef National Park and beyond. As I understand it, the formation is a monocline, where strata change depth at a fairly steep angle, and subsequent erosion has worn away and exposed these strata in amazing ways, especially where the up-trending layers end. This photograph, made from a high point along the ridge of Capitol Reef, looks south into the waterpocket valley as it bends and continues to head south.

Canyon with Cottonwood Trees
Canyon with Cottonwood Trees

Canyon With Cottonwood Trees. Waterpocket Fold, Utah. October 22, 2014.© Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Cottonwood trees with autumn foliage follow a wash up a canyon toward Waterpocket Fold area cliffs

This photograph looks to the east across the strike valley of the Waterpocket Fold feature from along the ridge of Capitol Reef. A wash (which may be Bitter Creek?) winds away and upwards toward the giant cliffs along the east side of the Valley. The scene illustrates, I think, quite a few common features of this terrain. It is quite arid and rugged — except that along the bottom of the wash, which periodically floods, a long grove of cottonwood trees and other vegetation has taken hold and seems to thrive.

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.
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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.

Commentary, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Too Many Aspens!

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Yesterday I realized that I had sort of forgotten a huge batch of aspen photographs from this fall in the eastern Sierra Nevada. How can one “forget” a big batch of such photographs, you ask? I simply became busy working on several other projects and after I moved on to them I stopped thinking about the earlier work.

I have so many of them — with more to come! — that I’m not going to string them out and post one at a time. Instead, here is one big batch of them all in one post. To save typing, all are from the eastern Sierra Nevada in October 2014

Aspen Grove, June Lake Loop
Aspen Grove, June Lake Loop

Grove, June Lake Loop. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Autumn Aspen Forest
Autumn Aspen Forest

Autumn Aspen Forest. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Aspen Groves, Country Road
Aspen Groves, Country Road

Aspen Groves, Country Road. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

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

Sierra Aspen Groves, Autumn

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Sierra Aspen Groves, Autumn
Sierra Aspen Groves, Autumn

Sierra Aspen Groves, Autumn. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. October 12, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Aspen groves in varying states of autumn color, eastern Sierra Nevada

This photograph was a bit of an unplanned surprise. (The truth is that quite few aspen photographs are just that — partly because I’m always looking around for places I haven’t photographed before, and partly because one never knows what the aspen conditions will like until arrival on the scene.) I had started my morning with a plan that evolved a bit. Up well before sunrise, my initial plan to was to explore an area of east-facing slopes along the edge of the Sierra where I knew that colorful trees would be scattered about. As I drove to what seemed like the obvious starting point, I thought about a very large grove that I had earlier spotted very high up on these slopes… and as I looked that direction I saw a set of headlights up there! That was all the encouragement I needed to find a narrow a steep track that took me way up high on a ridge from which I photographed those trees at dawn.

When I finished shooting there I took a few minutes to finally eat something and then figured that I would try a “sure bet” location nearby. I drove back down the single-track gravel route, got back on pavement, and headed there. Sure enough, there was a lot of brilliant color in this area. As I drove up the road I spotted rows of aspens at the edge of a meadow, still in soft shaded light, but not seeing a photograph there and with my mind on another subject up ahead, I kept going. Before long I was done with that “other subject” and I decided to head toward a third (and non-aspen) subject, so I turned around and headed back the way I came. As I passed this spot again, something about the light and the trees caught my attention again — mainly the soft effect of light reflected into this shaded grove — so I stopped and made a series of photographs that mostly just “show what is” about these trees.

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

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

Forest Floor, Late Summer

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Forest Floor, Late Summer, Sierra Nevada High Country
“Forest Floor, Late Summer” — Late-summer forest floor littered with fallen cones, branches, needles, and leaves.

As summer comes to an end in the high country of the Sierra Nevada, as it was during my early September visit this year, the moisture, growth, and greenery of the early season give way to the drier and more brown conditions signaling the coming of fall. The short period of rapid summer growth ends, and the mountains seems quieter.

We camped and photographed for several days at a small lake, exploring and even revisiting to places to photograph them more than once. By staying in one location for a time, it we notice things that are overlooked during a shorter stay. Initially the dramatic granite features around the lake drew our attention, but after a few days we became more interested in subtler things, including a low, grassy area near the outlet stream of the lake. On this morning I was simply wandering slowly though this area, now looking more closely and at smaller things, when I saw the still-shadowed ground densely covered by a carpet of pine cones.

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.

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