Tag Archives: long

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Fractured Rock and Lichen

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Fractured Rock and Lichen
Yellow lichen grows on fractured, terraced rocks in the Eastern Sierra Nevada

Fractured Rock and Lichen. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Yellow lichen grows on fractured, terraced rocks in the Eastern Sierra Nevada

I had been camped within walking distance of this feature for the better part of a week before I spent time photographing it. Oddly, I had walked right past it as we hiked in to our base camp, and I had apparently not even looked up to see it. It is a long section of granite-like rock that runs along the shoreline of a lake, and because the rocks are high enough the spot retains soft, shaded light well into the morning. While it isn’t a dramatic, iconic sort of location, a closer look revealed lots of intimate details worth photographing.

This section of fractured blocks intrigued me for several reasons. The shapes themselves hint at geological processes about which I can only speculate — lots of linear and crossing fractures that gradually eroded to leave a stair step sort of structure. The rock itself is covered in places with some vividly colorful lichen, and small plants grow in cracks where water is apparently available. The color of the scene is a bit unusual, in that the bluish tones come from reflected sky, which produces a large portion of the illumination here.

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

Colorful Rocks, Lichen

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Colorful Rocks, Lichen
A shadowed rock face with red lichen

Colorful Rocks, Lichen. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A shadowed rock face with red lichen

This photograph looks at some details that might be easy to overlook. The rock face was located along a trail we walked on our way to our base camp for nearly a week of Sierra Nevada backcountry photography, and we ended up camping perhaps a half mile from this spot. Most of my focus was on higher terrain, but later during our visit I found the time to walk down-canyon to this spot and photograph this wall.

Several things were striking about this feature. From a personal perspective, I was surprised that I had completely ignore such an interesting source of intimate landscapes when I walked past it the first time. Now, as I revisited it, I realized that the light here was quite special, with some reflections from bright, high peaks across the valley, and additional light coming from the blue sky, with both sources filling in soft light. Here and there small plants found a foothold in cracks, and colorful lichens, ranging from intense reds and oranges through bright greens and yellows grew on the face.

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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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Eastside Dawn

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Eastside Dawn
Dawn light on the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada near Long Valley

Eastside Dawn. Sierra Nevada, California. October 10, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dawn light on the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada near Long Valley

I regard myself as a bit of a sunrise connoisseur, having arisen well before dawn on many, many mornings — almost every morning, actually — and often gone out to observe and photograph at first light. Trust me, I do understand how hard it is to get out of a warm bed (or warm sleeping bag) in darkness, dress, and head out into the still-dark world. But if you can start to make it a habit there is a good chance that you’ll become addicted — and what better kind of addiction is there than to need to see the first light?

I photographed this on an autumn morning when I headed out into the valley to the east of the escarpment of the Sierra. It was, as it usually is in mid-October, very cold when we arrived. But it was also very quiet and still, and steam was rising from nearby springs and creeks as the sky began to listen and the first light touched the peaks of the Sierra. It worked its way down the face of the range, across fluted alpine faces, into deep mountain valleys, and eventually to the rounded, tree-covered hills at the foot of the range.

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.

Ideas, Site News

A Photo A Day: How Long Has This Gone On?

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Recently someone who was giving a talk on photography noted that I have been posting a photograph every day for a long time. His guess was that I had been doing so for about four of five years. I told him that I thought that it has been longer than this, but I wasn’t sure how long.

Morning Light, Zabriskie Point
Morning light on the badlands near Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park

Morning Light, Zabriskie Point. Death Valley National Park. April 4, 2004. © Copyright 2004 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved. (Originally posted April 5, 2006.)

Judging from some records I just looked up, I think I may have been doing this since early April 2006! Some of those earliest posts are still there, but the photographs have gone missing — in the course of moving the website between different hosts and transferring the content from one content management system to another some of the early content was lost.

(This was not the first photograph shared  I posted online — I was blogging in the mid-1990s, and posting photographs not long afterward. It is a bit scary to think of how many thousands of photographs I must have posted by now!)

My friend (the “someone” mentioned above) was pointing to this history in the context of practice, something that I think is tremendously important in photography. He and I share extensive background and training in music, where the importance of practice is obvious, and where practicing is assumed. Continue reading A Photo A Day: How Long Has This Gone On? →