Tag Archives: meadow

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Grasses, Water, Talus

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Grasses, Water, Talus
Talus from a glacial moraine reaches the edge of a reflective alpine lake with a shoreline patch of grass

Grasses, Water, Talus. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Talus from a glacial moraine reaches the edge of a reflective alpine lake with a shoreline patch of grass

This is (yet another) photograph from my September backcountry sojourn in the John Muir Wilderness, accompanied by a group of four friends and photographers who try to do this every year. We packed in to a lake a few miles from the trailhead, set up camp, and proceeded to work the surrounding landscape for the next week, starting early and finishing late almost every day. In the course of the week we thoroughly explored the surroundings within a few miles radius of our camp.

The far edge of the lake near our camp was completely rocky and almost entirely devoid of flora. (Our side did features a meadow and some stunted trees.) A tremendous talus field, distorted by glacial action, rose straight up from the lake shore to the surrounding ridges. I photographed this material several times during our stay, most often working in the early morning before the direct sunlight arrived. In many of the photographs there is nothing by rocks and water, but in this one I included a bit of the colorful shoreline grass.

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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

Morning Light, Meadow and Lake

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Morning Light, Meadow and Lake
First morning light comes to Sierra Nevada peaks beyond forest-rimmed lake and meadow

Morning Light, Meadow and Lake. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

First morning light comes to Sierra Nevada peaks beyond forest-rimmed lake and meadow

This photograph includes many of the major visual themes from a weeklong photographic visit to this part of the Sierra Nevada backcountry: The green meadow with its small trees, the still lake, low hills between the lake and the deep valley beyond, and across that valley many high, alpine peaks.

Although it is not the highest peak in this view — not by far — the bulky peak in the center of the frame dominated the view from this spot and many other nearby areas. (It also appears in a previous photograph I posted from near this location.) This morning began with partly cloudy skies, and as the sunlight began to penetrate the overcast it sent a beam of warm light across the face of the peak.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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

Alpine Meadow and Lake, Sierra Crest

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Alpine Meadow and Lake, Sierra Crest
The Sierra Nevada crest beyond an alpine meadow and lake

Alpine Meadow and Lake, Sierra Crest. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The Sierra Nevada crest beyond an alpine meadow and lake

A short walk from our backcountry camp was a higher meadow that we visited almost every day, morning and/or evening. In this unusually wet year the meadow was green and full of wildflower,  with water running strongly in the creek and the areas around the tarn muddy with standing run-off.

The meadow and its flowers were the first attractions of this spot, but the more I visited it and watched the light on the higher peaks, the more they came to fascinate me. The central peak in the photograph stands apart from the main ridge, and for this reason it picks up direct sun from morning until evening. I made this photograph in the evening, when the direct light had already left the meadow (shadowed by a nearby ridge) and remnant thunder-storm clouds filled the sky.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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

Wildflowers, Meadow, Peaks

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Wildflowers, Meadow, Peaks
Wildflowers carpet a meadow leading to John Muir Wilderness peaks

Wildflowers, Meadow, Peaks. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Wildflowers carpet a meadow leading to John Muir Wilderness peaks

I made this photograph just steps from where we were camped for a week during a prior (and much wetter!) summer. If you were at this location at the end of July in a more typical year you would likely see a lot of brown beginning to appear in the meadow. But this had been a year of record-breaking winter precipitation, and everything was still green.

There were also wildflowers everywhere. (Mosquitos, too, of course — the two go hand in hand in the high country!) This is something of an unusual composition for me, with a wide-angle lens placing the very close flowers in the same frame with the very distant alpine ridge standing in bright morning light against a perfect blue sky.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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 | LinkedIn | Email

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