Tag Archives: meadow

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Eastern Sierra Valley, Afternoon Light

September 4, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Afternoon light coming over the Sierra crest illuminates a subalpine eastern Sierra valley

This little spot is not far from the boundary of Yosemite. It is a place that people often stop, but from what I’ve seen they usually stop for reasons other than the view. (Recently I was there very early in the morning, and I found a bunch of impromptu campers there — probably folks who weren’t able to get a campsite inside the park.) Some years ago I “discovered” a couple of views from the spot that I’ve come to enjoy and return to — one looking towards a nearby tall peak from an angle different from the more familiar views, and the other looking westward up this high valley with meadows along the creek, forest leading up the lower slopes, and high and rocky terrain above.

This time I was there in the afternoon, and on a very hazy day. (This has been the Year of Haze in the Sierra, largely due to the dry condition and the consequent early and widespread wildfires.) I love haze, and in many ways I prefer hazy conditions over crystal clear air. so my first thoughts were of how I could use this hazy atmosphere in my photograph. As I stood at this spot with my tripod set up, clouds traversed the Sierra summit, sending shadows across the valley — alternately putting everything in shade and then revealing features and the light crept back across the landscape. So I began to watch the clouds and the approaching beams of light, trying to predict when I might see an ideal combination of the two. At the moment I made this exposure most of the scene was in sun, though a few shadows added relief to the darker areas of the forest across the valley.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Family, Sierra Meadow

September 2, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A mother and sons in a High Sierra meadow near the Minarets

For some reason that I cannot quite recall, not too long ago I took an excursion through some old photographs from about a decade ago, from a time just after I had made most of the transition from film to digital photography. (This past week a friend asked if i had photographs from a 2005 trip, so I’ve been digging into this old work even more.) Back in these days I was slightly past my “wonder if digital is all that?” stage, and I was moving resolutely away from film and toward digital technologies. The results were becoming quite usable, though I was still shooting landscapes with a cropped sensor camera!

On this trip I joined up with my brother, his wife, and their three young sons. Although I had taken all of my children into the backcountry when they were young, those days were largely behind my by this point and I had almost forgotten what it is like to backpack with children. And my many solo trips back in these days had made me perhaps hyper self-reliant, to the point that I tended to let everyone fend for himself or herself. I recall being reminded of this by my brother who was bit less than pleased when I crossed a creek flooding portions of the meadow in this photograph and then kept going! Look closely and you may be able to see some of the rest of my party down in that meadow as twilight falls.

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

Mount Dana

August 28, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening light, Mount Dana and Dana Meadows

On an evening early in my mid-July visit to Yosemite’s high country, I parked my car along Tioga Pass Road and next to a meadow that is an old friend of mine, shouldered my pack and tripod, and wandered slowly into the landscape, knowing that there was too much to see to warrant hurrying. I dropped to a low flat area, only to discover that water was flowing across it beneath the meadow foliage, so I spent a bit of time looking for a dry path through the section. A bit further on I climbed a low rise with glacial boulders and small trees on top, and I paused here to look for a while and then made a few photographs before moving on.

The photographs from this spot included some of this slope leading toward the summit of Mount Dana, the second tallest peak in the park at just over 13,000 feet of elevation. From my location in this subalpine meadow, the terrain gradually ascends through dense forest, with trees gradually becoming smaller, past the tree line to where only smaller shrubs and bushes grow, and on up to alpine tundra. Clouds shrouded the peak on this evening, leftovers from early thunderstorm weather. Of all these things, photographically I was most interested in the close meadow, rocks, and trees Oddly, when I returned home I initially ignored this photograph, but later on I went back and looked again and ended up feeling that it conveys a true sense of this sort of country.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Dusk, Clouds, Full Moon

June 12, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The full moon behind dusk clouds above and eastern Sierra Nevada meadow

This will be another short post — things are quite busy right now! The photograph is from almost a decade ago, when I accompanied my brother, his wife, and three sons on a backpack trip into a favorite area of the eastern Sierra Nevada. Our trip began with a hike to a picturesque lake between two high ridges, where we spent several days exploring… and surviving “interesting” weather. We found a beautiful campsite on a bench above a meadow and lake. In the evening I set up on this high spot and photographed the near-night darkness with the moon shining from behind the broken layer of clouds overhead.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: meadow

Eastern Sierra Valley, Afternoon Light

Family, Sierra Meadow

Mount Dana

Dusk, Clouds, Full Moon

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