Tag Archives: lembert

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Meadow, Forest, and Dome

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Meadow, Forest, and Dome
Morning light on Lembert Dome and the forest and grasses of Tuolumne Meadow

Meadow, Forest, and Dome. Yosemite National Park, California. August 15, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light on Lembert Dome and the forest and grasses of Tuolumne Meadow

The prior day was one of thick wildfire smoke, coming mainly from a fire on the far side of the park near Wawona, but also with contributions from various others fires including some small, managed lightening fires. The effect was not good — the smoke here was as thick as I’ve ever seen it before, including during a late summer visit to Cathedral Lakes a few years back during the height of the drought, when at times it seemed like the entire Sierra was on fire. In any case, the evening before I made this photograph it was still very smokey, and I wondered what the next morning would bring.

As usual, I woke up before sunrise. I was tempted to stay in the warm sleeping bag a while longer, but I summoned the focus to look outside. Noting that I could see blue sky, I got up fairly quickly and left the tent, heading down to the meadow. There was still just a bit of residual smoke hanging around, and there was also a shallow layer of light ground fog. All of this produces some very interesting atmosphere and light as I wandered the meadow, walking between grassy areas and encroaching bits of forest. I paused here, positions myself so that the large trees at the right would block the direct sun, and I made a few photographs including all of the elements of this landscape except the river that passed by out of sight.

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 and Amazon.
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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Morning Above The Meadow

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Morning Above The Meadow
First light comes to ridges and peaks above a subalpine meadow

Morning Above The Meadow. Yosemite National Park, California. July 27, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

First light comes to ridges and peaks above a subalpine meadow

Nothing was yet open along Tioga Pass Road when I visited in late July. Typically all of the campgrounds would be open by this point, but an exceptionally heavy winter snowfall had delayed the process of clearing the road and opening up the high country. There was still a lot of snow at around 10,000′ and higher, and water was running high and fast everywhere. Early in the morning I drove back into the park from my camp site just east of the crest, heading down to Tuolumne Meadows to make some early morning photographs.

I’m often a bit surprised by how few people who camp at Tuolumne manage to make it out to the meadow for first light, missing what is arguably the most beautiful time of the day. On this day, with the campground closed, there was almost no one else at the meadow — I had the place almost entirely to myself. I stopped at the lower end of the meadow and looked back to the east, across the meadow and then a series of successive ridges, including a couple of well-known domes, and finally to the summit of Mount Dana. The sun had just risen on the east side of the range, and its light was beginning to pour over the ridges of the Sierra crest.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Meadow, Forest, Cloud-Shrouded Peak

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Meadow, Forest, Cloud-Shrouded Peak
Cloud-shrouded Mount Conness towers above the domes and forest of Tuolumne Meadows

Meadow, Forest, Cloud-Shrouded Peak. Yosemite National Park, California. July 12, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Cloud-shrouded Mount Conness towers above the domes and forest of Tuolumne Meadows

I’ll take a break from the recent urban, night, and street photography and go back to the high country with a photograph from about this time a year ago. I spent a few days in the Tuolumne Meadows area, photography in the high elevation areas of the park. This was a particularly memorable evening that started without a specific plan, led to a surprise meeting with friends and photographs, including a hike down a river to a lovely area of granite slabs, and concluded with sunset back in the big meadow.

As we came back up the river we split up — some heading up onto a nearby high prominence and others (that would be me!) hanging out along the edge of the meadow, between the base of a granite dome and a large herd of grazing deer. As the final sun light touched the tops of the highest peaks, fog formed around the summit of Mt. Conness up along the Sierra crest.

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

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

Morning, Tuolumne Meadows, Mount Dana

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Morning, Tuolumne Meadows, Mount Dana
Lembert Dome and Mount Dana rise above Tuolumne Meadows on a cloudy summer morning

Morning, Tuolumne Meadows, Mount Dana. Yosemite National Park, California. July 13, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Lembert Dome and Mount Dana rise above Tuolumne Meadows on a cloudy summer morning

This is yet another of the stopped-on-my-way-somewhere-else photographs, often made unexpectedly as I encounter something I wasn’t really looking for and get distracted — though another way to put it is that I quickly fall into a different mode of seeing when I photograph, and I begin to recognize the potential in subjects that I might otherwise not have noticed. In this case I was headed towards a specific location that I had planned to visit this morning, with a rather specific subject in mind. I set out and, as almost always, my “photographer’s brain” engages and I start seeing potential photographs everywhere. There is a tricky balance sometimes between stopping for the thing I see right here and sticking to a plan to photograph that other thing that I want to see. (This is an old question in photography with the extreme answers ranging from “never pass up a subject in front of you for one that you might see elsewhere” to “make a plan and stick to it if you want to get the photograph you have in mind.” The truth is complex, situational, and depends as much on good fortune and good guesses perhaps as much as on any rational considerations.)

In any case, I skipped past a few opportunities/distractions but ended up stopping for this one. This is a fairly well-known view in this part of the Sierra, though not everyone sees it right at sunrise. I’ve often stopped to admire the scene and on occasion photograph it, usually with some beautiful haze partially obscuring distant details and perhaps making closer details clearer by contrast. Since I am familiar with the view and had a good idea of what I wanted the photograph to look like, stopping for a few minutes was sufficient to make the photograph… and I was back on the road to my original destination.

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