Tag Archives: light

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

Morning, Tuolumne Meadows

July 22, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Trees of Tuolumne Meadows in morning light, with forest ascending background slopes, Yosemite Naitonal Park.

As a photographer, I am often up and off to shoot some interesting subject well before dawn. When I am car-camping, as I was during my mid-July visit to Tuolumne Meadows this year, I have a loose ritual that I usually follow. The night before I come up with one or more subjects that I would like to photograph in morning light. Based on where those are – driving or walking distance, and closer or further away – I set an alarm for a much earlier time than I want to. Then I have everything ready for a quick and fairly brainless early start – anything I’ll need to take from the tent sits by the end of the zipper I’ll grab to open the tent, and other things are already in the car. The alarm goes off – way too early for my brain, of course! – and I try to sit up so that I won’t go back to sleep and then put on whatever clothes I need for the morning weather. On a good day, I’m out of the tent and in the car in 5 minutes. On a bad day it might take 15. (On a really bad day, I have been known to just go back to sleep! Hey, it happens… but not very often.) I get in the car and try to drive out of the campground as quickly and quietly as possible.

You may have noticed that something was missing from that routine – breakfast! Indeed, I usually don’t bother with breakfast before shooting, preferring instead to get to work while the light is good. As hard as it can be to get started, it usually doesn’t take too long to find some site so special and compelling that I forget how hard it was to get up so early. In fact, once I get going I am often surprised to find so few others out and about at this time of the most beautiful light. Frequently I may see only a few hikers and perhaps another photographer or two, and even a couple of hours later, as the best light begins to transition into the “blah” daytime light, many people are apparently still in their sleeping bags.

I didn’t have far to go on this morning. Tuolumne Meadows is just across Tioga Pass Road from the main campground. The early light was a bit hazy, and as the backlight lit up the meadow and fringed the many trees, this haze enhanced the sense of distance between the closer trees and the forest leading up the more distant hillside.

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Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Owens Valley

Sand Tufa, Mono Lake

July 19, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early morning light on details of sand tufa formations, Mono County.

I have wanted to photograph this subject for some time. The sand tufas are not found in the same location as the better-known “tufa towers” that are so often photographed, and they are smaller and somewhat subtler (if that is the right word) subjects. If you weren’t aware of what you were looking for, it would be very easy to pass right by them and barely notice their presence at all. They also appear to be very fragile, so great care should be taken if you ever happen to come across them. Walk around, not over or through them, and minimize your impact on them to the greatest extent possible. If you come across examples, it is probably best to not blast a lot of specific information to the world. I don’t know all of the details of their formation, but judging by their locations and by the recent history of lower lake levels, I suspect that they may have been underwater before the historically recent extraction of water from the eastern Sierra by Los Angeles.

If you are thinking of looking for an interesting and easy to shoot photographic subject, don’t bother with the sand tufa. You’ll probably have much better luck and more fun shooting the impressive and better known and larger “tower” features at other areas. These small structures do not tower above anything. Some are only inches tall, and the largest are just a few feet tall. Their natural color is a muted and, let’s be honest, boring gray color. Their location does not particularly allow them to be paired with more impressive and distant large-scale landscape features such as the expanse of the lake’s surface or the surrounding mountains and hills, with the possible exception of certain kinds of cloud formations. When I went there I had some pre-conceived ideas about I might photograph them, perhaps including the Sierra’s eastern escarpment in the images, but these ideas did not pan out. However, by shooting in the first few minutes of light and working with a long focal length to crop tightly I found some interesting fluted patterns to work with.

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

Morning Light, Tioga Tarn

July 17, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light, shining over the shoulder of Mount Dana, strikes a shoreline meadow along one of the Tioga tarns, Yosemite National Park.

I’m pretty much completely unable to resist making photographs of trees back-lit by morning light, especially when they are in meadowy areas along the shorelines of sub-alpine or alpine lakes. The condition is even worse when the water reflects the backlit trees, and almost unbearable when the light also illuminates some of the shapes below the water’s surface. It is a personal weakness. I freely admit it! ;-)

I made this photograph early one morning, but not too early, in the general area of Tioga Pass. The high country on both sides of the pass contains quite a few small seasonal ponds filled by snow-melt water. Many are shallow and many, but not all, are partially to completely surrounded by meadow. Often small trees may grow in the meadow areas along the banks of the tarns, with the old explanation being that they are “gradually filling in the meadows,” though I’ve also heard that they find it harder to grow in these areas because of the higher water table. I made this photograph with a rather long lens. In some ways it might have been better to work closer to the trees and use a shorter lens, but here it was also a better idea to use the long lens to protect the area surrounding the tarn, an area that is perhaps just a bit too accessible to visitors and which needs a bit of additional care and protection. By the way, if you want to see green high country scenes like this one, you’ll have to go very soon this year! After a very dry winter, much of the water is already drying up in the high country and the meadows that would typically be at their height of green right about now are already turning brown quickly.

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

Forest, Meadow, and Stream

July 13, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A mountain stream winds through a sub-alpine meadow and past lodgepole forest beneath a snow covered peak in evening light, Yosemite National Park.

I know this scene is in Yosemite National Park. I know that it is in the high country along Tioga Pass Road, most likely not too far from Tuolumne Meadows. I know that I made the photograph in the evening after photographing certain other specific subjects in this area. But, for the life of me, I cannot identify the exact location. The peak looks very familiar and I can’t imagine that I had not earlier seen this little bend in the river, but one year after I made the photograph… I’m coming up empty! :-)

Still, there are plenty of things that I do know about this scene. It was late July of the second of two very wet seasons in the Sierra, and the results are plainly visible here in several ways. Even though it was almost August, there is still plenty of snow on the ridge and peak, which must be in the 11,000+’ elevation range, given the alpine appearance of the talus fields. That is a lot of snow for late July! (This year it looked about like that six or eight weeks earlier.) And, not surprisingly given the amount of yet-to-melt snow, the little meadow is still lush and green with early summer growth. And, of course, the stream itself is flowing strongly. I suppose that the main subject of this photograph was and is the beautiful fringe of late-day light on the little grove of trees on the bank of the creek as it meanders through the meadow.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: light

Morning, Tuolumne Meadows

Sand Tufa, Mono Lake

Morning Light, Tioga Tarn

Forest, Meadow, and Stream

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