Tag Archives: light

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

Morning, Near Olmsted Point

August 22, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Morning light on granite and sparse trees near Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park

This is another photograph from 2011 on a late-July trip to the Yosemite high country along Tioga Pass Road. The photo was made in morning light in the general area of Olmsted Point, where a series of granite domes and ridges lines up roughly parallel to Tenaya Canyon and in the morning the brightly back-lit haze can create a sense of spatial depth and mute the details of the formations further away.

I suppose that backlit trees like this one are a bit of a theme for me – yet another Sierra subject I cannot resist photographing! The central tree is, obviously, just one of many thousands of trees right here but since it was the closest one it served as my subject. The tree is set in granite slabs topped with glacial erratics left behind when the last glaciation ended, and the slabs are mostly very solid, making the it all the more amazing that such a large and upright tree can grow here. Another ridge rises in the middle distance, and beyond it yet another ridge whose details are nearly invisible in the morning light.

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

Trees and Granite, Morning Light

August 18, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

First morning light on trees and granite slabs near Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park.

I made this photograph a year ago, almost exactly, in August of 2011, while on a trip of several days devoted to photographing the High Sierra, mostly in the Tuolumne Meadows area of Yosemite. A year later I do not remember all of the details of this morning, though I recall that I had gone very early to the Olmsted Point area to photograph the glacial erratic boulders and some rugged trees growing on the granite slabs found in the area. Perhaps this was among the first photographs I made, before heading off to shoot my primary subject, since the series it comes from includes the very first light to strike these trees, while its angle was still small enough to hit the trees but not the rock.

When I came upon this photograph in the old raw file archive this week, one thing that struck me is the fact that it does include a Yosemite icon (seen from an iconic angle that is often photographed), yet that icon is almost an afterthought and most certainly not the primary subject of the photograph. I posted something here yesterday about photographing icons (“Photographing Icons or Not”), and one of the ideas that you might take away from that post is that it is possible to see iconic sights in ways that do not necessarily repeat the familiar iconic views. (Not to fear, I have the iconic view of this subject, too.) I’m willing to bet that I was thinking a whole lot more about the warm first light on the foreground trees, the way it contrasted with the cooler blue tones of the deep canyon and shadowed ridges beyond, and the texture and shapes of the foreground granite slabs that are so characteristic of this part of the Sierra.

Ideas, Locations, Stories

I Feel Fall Coming

August 15, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 5 Comments

It happens every year at about this time, close to the middle of August. Even though I have learned to expect it, I’m still happily surprised when it occurs. There is inevitably a day when I am outside and I sense something different in the world and I know (really know, not just know by looking at the calendar) that the seasonal trajectory is now beginning to leave summer behind and head inevitably toward autumn.

This is not a bad thing, by the way. I happen to love autumn.

Dry Creek at Fletcher Lake - A dry creek surrounded by golden autumn meadow grasses and illuminated by early morning light winds through a clump of small trees near Fletcher Lake, Yosemite National Park, California. — A dry creek surrounded by golden autumn meadow grasses and illuminated by early morning light winds through a clump of small trees near Fletcher Lake, Yosemite National Park, California.

It often happens for me in the Sierra. I usually spend weeks there between June and October – the time of year when camping and backpacking are possible. The beginning of the season is marked by tremendous changes. Snow melts, rivers rise, meadows flood, plants emerge, flowers bloom, campgrounds open, trails clear, tourists arrive, plans are made and executed and many things are new, or at least new once again. Then on that August day, something changes. I cannot put my finger precisely on the nature of the change, but it is unmistakable and it often stops me momentarily in my tracks when it happens. For some reason I often associate it with the way the air seems to move and with the way it carries sound – I may notice something different in the sound of the breeze or the way it amplifies the sound of a cascade across a valley. There is something about the light that I think of as a kind of soft quality and a feeling that the color of the light might be a bit cooler. At about the same time I often notice certain other more concrete indications for the first time, too, such as the way that more of the corn lily plants start to become brown or even yellow and that grasses are less and less green and more and more brown.

I was not in the Sierra when it happened this year. This year, the past few months have not been a time for a lot of travel to places like the Sierra. I have only been to the Sierra on a single multi-day visit, and that was over a month ago. (Don’t worry – I will be going back soon!) So this year it happened at home, on a morning earlier this week – my birthday, actually – when I walked into our yard in the morning to take a look at the vegetable garden, and I notice that vague but unmistakable quality of light, quietness of the breeze, and softness of the atmosphere.

The calendar may say summer, and for more than a month to come, but I’m ready for autumn.

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.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Big Sur Coast at Soberanes Point

August 15, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Evening fog comes in as the rugged Big Sur coast stretches north from near Soberanes Point, California.

Talk about photographic geekiness – we ended up making photographs on my birthday! Because of a variety of factors, this turned out to be a bit of a low key birthday this year – despite some earlier plans to do all sorts of wild and crazy things. (Completing the JMT or going to Alaska will perhaps wait a bit… ;-) After a quiet and lazy morning we decided to head down to the Monterey area for a birthday dinner, which turned out to be quite nice by the way. (Thanks, Patty!)

Since we arrived a few hours before our dinner reservation. After stalling around a bit, thinking about this and that option, we decided to do the usual, obvious thing and head south on the Highway 1, the “coast highway,” into the upper portion of the Big Sur coastline area. While it is a very familiar area and one I visit a lot, it is never the same twice – all of the variables of light and atmosphere and season and weather are in play and you almost never know quite what you’ll find. On this early evening, the most important factor was that the edge of the ocean fog was positioned very close to the shore. This meant that sometimes it extended just a bit inland, creating light that ranged from slightly luminous to gray and murky, while in other areas it was just offshore, allowing light to hit the coast and even to light the surface of the ocean a bit. Here at the cove where the creek comes down Soberanes Canyon to meet the ocean, we found one of those boundaries – quite gray along the immediate coast in the distance, sunlight on the bluffs and hills at the right, and that wonderful boundary light in between. And above that, the barely perceptible difference between the soft clouds of fog and the light blue of the late-day sky.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: light

Morning, Near Olmsted Point

Trees and Granite, Morning Light

I Feel Fall Coming

Big Sur Coast at Soberanes Point

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