Tag Archives: ledge

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

Towers and Shadows, Sunrise

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Towers and Shadows, Sunrise
Red rock towers cast shadows on a cliff face in sunrise light, Zion National Park.

Towers and Shadows, Sunrise. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Red rock towers cast shadows on a cliff face in sunrise light, Zion National Park.

We have not visited Utah since before the 2016 election. I love Utah’s diverse and beautiful landscape, but once the state joined in the process of dismantling public lands I felt that the ethical — though painful — choice was to stay away until things were once again set right. Earlier this month we made it back and I can report that the state is as beautiful as it was before… and that I’m very glad to have been able to return. To a Californian, used to the mostly-gray landscapes of my beloved Sierra Nevada, the technicolor landscape of Utah is a revelation.

This photograph is another intuit combines planning and dumb luck. We got up a bit later on this morning. There was no need to catch the first shuttle into the canyon since our plan was to drive to higher country. This particular subject was on my list of sunrise possibilities, but when we arrived at the spot where I thought I could set up I could not find a place to pull over. That turned out to be good luck, as a few minutes later I figured out that a more elevated perspective was possible a bit further up the road. We found a place to pull over just. before the sun/shadow line reached the pinnacles, and I worked quickly to set up as the light continued to descend. I made a series of exposures starting with the first glimmer of direct light on the highest tower, and then I kept photographing as the light moved lower on the face, projecting the shadows of the ledge and towers on the cliff wall.

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Ledge Meets Lake

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Ledge Meets Lake
A ledge llittered with fractured rocks above the shorline of an alpine Sierra Nevada lake.

Ledge Meets Lake. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A ledge llittered with fractured rocks above the shorline of an alpine Sierra Nevada lake.

This little conjunction of rock and water has fascinated me since I first saw it. The lake is in the eastern Sierra Nevada backcountry, above another lake where a group of us went to photograph for a week a couple of years ago. I have a long acquaintance with this upper lake, having first visited it perhaps a couple of decades ago. It is fascinating how my perception of the place changed over time. From that long-ago first visit I only remember that there wasn’t much in the way of obvious campsites here. On later visits I took in more of the alpine surrounds of this lake, which is set in a high bowl. Over several days of repeated visits on the more recent trip I became very familiar with the rocky terrain around the outlet of the lake.

While I’m not completely averse to photographing icons, I spend most of my photographic time in places like this looking for things that I would overlook without careful attention. Seen this way, there are photographic opportunities almost everywhere I look. In fact, I “saw” this little scene it at least four (and counting!) different ways, several of which attentive viewers may recall.

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Sierra Lake, Submerged Rocks

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Sierra Lake, Submerged Rocks
By the shore of an Eastern Sierra backcountry lake with a ledge of submerged rocks.

Sierra Lake, Submerged Rocks. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

By the shore of an Eastern Sierra backcountry lake with a ledge of submerged rocks.

Recently I have had more than one excuse to go back and revisit photographs from previous years. First, this has been an attractive way to find “new old” work during this time of restrictions on travel. Second, I’m involved in a project (about which I can’t say more at the moment) that required me to spend a lot of time during the past month reviewing photographs from a particular subset of my Sierra Nevada photographs. It has been wonderful to relive a set of wonderful backcountry trips I took since about 2008 and, in the process, “discover” a lot of images that I had somehow left behind.

This is one of those photographs. I’ve often wondered about how it is that certain photographs seem to need to “age” for months or years before they make sense. In this case, I think what happened is that when I considered photographs from this place made on this day that I selected another image, worked my way through it, and then moved on. In essence, this one was “left on the cutting room floor” during that editing process. The scene is a high country lake — which lake hardly matters — where rocks under shallow, shoreline water contrast with the intense aqua color of the deeper water.

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Trees, Ledge, Fractured Rock

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Trees, Ledge, Fractured Rock
Two trees grow tenaciously on a narrow ledge above a fractured cliff face.

Trees, Ledge, Fractured Rock. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two trees grow tenaciously on a narrow ledge above a fractured cliff face.

Nearly a decade ago I joined a group of friends and photographers at a Yosemite backcountry location. I was only there a few days, but they stayed for over a week — including a bout of incredibly cold early autumn weather than I managed to miss. (Although I wan’t there to experience it, I have heard the stories many times on subsequent backcountry trips with these folks.)

We were camped in a scenic location within in walking distance of a remarkable range things to see and photograph — lakes, meadows, ridges, granite slabs and ones, forest, and more. But I made this photograph only a few feet from camp, where low, fractured cliffs began to climb near the edge fo the lake and meadows. Like anyone who spends time there, I’ve long been fascinated by the relationship between Sierra trees and rock. Some trees, especially those growing in the rock, manage to eke our a life in little more than cracks in the granite and, in doing so, they sometimes seem closer to rock than to living things.

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.