Tag Archives: maple

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

Autumn Color, Granite Cliff

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Autumn Color, Granite Cliff
Transient autumn big leaf maple color in front of the granite face of El Capitan

Autumn Color, Granite Cliff. Yosemite Valley, California. October 29, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Transient autumn big leaf maple color in front of the granite face of El Capitan

Many of the beautiful Yosemite Valley big leaf maple trees, with their striking fall foliage, tend to be tucked away in somewhat protected areas, often in dense forest or alongside the river. Here I found one, and a rather large specimen, that stood enough apart from other trees that I was able to isolate it from the rest of the forest.

I had stopped here to photograph a different set of trees, a group that was more typically set against the dark backdrop of tall forest trees and in the shadow of the southern wall of the Valley. As I worked I looked around and happened to glance up at the face of El Capitan and notice that its usually intensely bright face was muted a bit by some high clouds, revealing details that are otherwise hard to see in the middle of the day. In fact, there was a slight blue cast to shadows and some of the dark stains on the rock, a coloration that seemed to contrast nicely with the intense yellow of the fall foliage of the maples.

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: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Forest and Ferns

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Forest and Ferns
A bed of ferns leads to conifer trees, big leaf maples, and the cliffs of Yosemite Valley

Forest and Ferns. Yosemite Valley, California. October 29, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A bed of ferns leads to conifer trees, big leaf maples, and the cliffs of Yosemite Valley

The autumn ferns of the Sierra have fascinated me for some time, and I think of them as among the most interesting of the harbingers of fall. I recall years ago driving across the Sierra to get to the east side in October and finding the transformation of the forest floor that they bring to be fascinating, especially in the evening when they seem to almost glow among the dark trunks of trees. Autumn color in the Sierra is most certainly not just about aspens!

I photographed this bed of ferns going dormant in a small meadow in Yosemite Valley. I stopped at a popular place, but then crossed the road to walk away from that spot and spend some time wandering meadows and forest of conifers and oaks. In this slight clearing at the end of the conifers there was a remarkably lush growth of ferns around this fallen tree, with more trees and more autumn color beyond.

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: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Maple, Forest, Fog

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Maple, Forest, Fog
Big leaf maple tree with autumn foliage in a foggy Yosemite National Park forest

Maple, Forest, Fog. Yosemite National Park, California. October 29, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Big leaf maple tree with autumn foliage in a foggy Yosemite National Park forest

This is a somewhat different photograph of a tree that appeared in another photograph I shared earlier this week. I had left Oakhurst very early in the morning, with the plan of arriving in Yosemite Valley at first light. Some plans don’t work out, and this was such a morning. As I drove along the highway through the park between the southern entrance and the valley, the road dropped into a valley that was fully fogged-in. I passed a spot that I had noted the day before, where several big leaf maple trees with fall foliage were growing in a small gully leading off into the foggy forest.

I quickly found a place to stop and turn around and head back. I grabbed my equipment, dropped into the gully, and went to work photographing before the fog lifted. The fog, along with the residual moisture from the previous day’s rain, intensified the colors and the soft light filled in the shadows, with the misty atmosphere leading back into the conifer forest.

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

Burned Forest, Autumn Color

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Burned Forest, Autumn Color
Autumn colors in a forest of burned trees, Yosemite Valley

Burned Forest, Autumn Color. Yosemite Valley, California. October 29, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Autumn colors in a forest of burned trees, Yosemite Valley

During this final weekend of October I spent a few days photographing in the Yosemite area, including along the road between Oakhurst and the Valley and then in Yosemite Valley itself. I had quite varied weather conditions — pouring rain on the first day as I drove up from the Bay Area, beautiful evening and morning fog followed by a sunny autumn day, and then a weather forecast of heavy rain that convinced me to beat a retreat from the park a day early.

Late on the second afternoon I stopped at a very popular and iconic location in the Valley, but I walked the other way, heading out into an area of rock, dry meadow and oak trees that gradually transitioned into conifer trees and big leaf maples, the latter being at their peak of fall color. Knowing the Valley pretty well at this point, I often prefer to look past the big sights and just wander, and that’s what I did here, eventually ending up in an area that had been burned recently by a management fire, clearing out the underbrush and charring the lower trunks of tall trees. In fact, the lower trunks were so affected that there were no branches to obstruct the view of the maples just beyond or of the vertical granite cliffs a bit further away.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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