Tag Archives: meadow

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Zion Canyon, Virgin River, Spring

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Zion Canyon, Virgin River, Spring - The Virgin River flows through Zion Canyon near Weeping Rock, Zion Canyon National Park, Utah.
The Virgin River flows through Zion Canyon near Weeping Rock, Zion Canyon National Park, Utah.

Zion Canyon, Virgin River, Spring. Zion National Park, Utah. April 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The Virgin River flows through Zion Canyon near Weeping Rock, Zion Canyon National Park, Utah.

On this morning we were back in Zion Canyon, following the Virgin River up the Valley to various locations. While it was still quite early we had walked up to the base of Weeping Rock, deep in the shaded area in the center of this photograph, and photographed there in the quiet shade. Then we moved a short distance up this part of the canyon where it makes a rather sharp series of turns and stopped an a place where there were visits up, down, and across the Virgin River and along the huge sandstone cliffs in all directions.

Looking around, I saw that there were some scattered clouds that were moving across the sky and alternative shading and lighting various portions of the landscape, and creating some dramatic effects, especially when the light came from behind the group of cottonwood trees along the banks of the river below me. The skeletal forms of the trees’ trunks were still clearly visible and, when the light was bright enough, they cast mirror-image shadows on the new grass below. The tops of the trees were fringed by new leaves, and these glowed brightly in the backlight coming from above the far cliffs above Weeping Rock. There was just enough haze in the air, amplified a bit by backlighting, to suggest the distance and massive size of the dark cliffs.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Three Tule Elk, Grassland

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Three Tule Elk, Grassland - Three tule elk grazing along the headlands area at Point Reyes National Seashore.
Three tule elk grazing along the headlands area at Point Reyes National Seashore.

Three Tule Elk, Grassland. Point Reyes National Seashore, California. May, 30, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Three tule elk grazing along the headlands area at Point Reyes National Seashore.

Although I was certainly aware that there are tule elk herds at Point Reyes National Seashore, I was not thinking about them when we encountered this group. We had driven out to the Point Reyes lighthouse and other areas at the extreme end of the peninsula, and had then stopped at Drakes Beach on the return trip. Finishing up at the beach, we got back in the car and headed up the hill towards the main road. As we reached an area near the top of the hill I thought I saw something moving off to the side, but I initially failed to recognize what I was seeing because the possibility of such animals in this place was not on my mind. I thought I was perhaps seeing a fence or something similar, but I couldn’t make sense out of why the fence would be moving!

A moment later we were a bit closer and it was obvious that a small herd of the tule elk were grazing very close to the fence along the road. I got out of the car and quietly attached a long lens to my camera and began to photograph these animals. The lighting and other circumstances were nearly perfect. It was very late in the day and the golden hour light had just started, and the backdrop was either the rolling hills you see here or, if I moved a bit to one side, some higher hills further to the west. This group of three large animals was moving, along with other animals not included in this shot, away from the road and further out into the meadows. As the three of them lined up in parallel, for a moment one swung its head around and looked directly towards me.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Aspen Grove, Spring

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Aspen Grove, Spring - Morning light filters through an eastern Sierra aspen grove on a spring morning.
Morning light filters through an eastern Sierra aspen grove on a spring morning.

Aspen Grove, Spring. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. June 7, 2009. © Copyright 2009 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light filters through an eastern Sierra aspen grove on a spring morning.

I often photograph the eastern Sierra aspens when they change colors in the fall, but these groves are appealing in every season – whether bare branches in snow, with green leaves quaking in the summer breezes, turning gold in fall, or with new leaves emerging in late spring.

I photographed these on one of those late-spring days. I had been up much earlier to photograph another subject elsewhere, and then returned to my camp site a bit later in the morning. This is a camp that I often use when photographing in the area east of Yosemite, so I know its surroundings quite well. The area is full of aspen trees, an there are a few small groves along a nearby section of the road that I often walk to. On this morning I stopped on my way back from that other place, just pulling over to the side of the road to shoot as the morning sun light was just arriving at this grove as the sun rose above the surrounding peaks.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

East Side of Bishop Pass

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East Side of Bishop Pass - Trail and meadows below the east side of Bishop Pass, eastern Sierra Nevada range
Trail and meadows below the east side of Bishop Pass, eastern Sierra Nevada range

East Side of Bishop Pass. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. August 4, 2005. © Copyright 2005 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trail and meadows below the east side of Bishop Pass, eastern Sierra Nevada range.

This photograph comes from about a dozen years ago. I recently came across it while sorting through older photograph files for a variety of reasons – general clearing out of old images, searching for photographs of a particular subject for a client, and seeing what older images I might have missed when I first made them. When I saw this photograph it evoked a whole series of fun recollections.

Nearly weeks earlier, I had begun a two-week-long backpack trip along a section of the John Muir Trail. At that time, the only section of the JMT that I had not hiked (at least once!) was an area between approximately Shadow Lake and the Muir Trail Ranch – and this was to be the trip on which I covered this remaining bit of trail. The trip started just fine, though in some territory that is not exactly my favorite portion of the range – the low areas around Devils Postpile. After passing by that national monument we headed south, passing Duck Lake and camping at Purple Lake.

The next morning I woke up feeling a bit under the weather, an unusual experience for me on the trail. The next leg of the trip was to take us through an area without an easy exit, and I became concerned about what would happen if my “feeling poorly” deteriorated into actually being sick. I reluctantly decided to leave my group to continue without me, and I backtracked over Duck Pass and down into the Mammoth Lakes area and headed home. (Ironically, by the time I got out I was feeling fine…)

Ending a trip this way just didn’t feel right, so I hatched a plan to show up and run into my friends on the last day of their trip. Since they were coming out over Bishop Pass, I crossed that pass into beautiful Dusy Basin a day earlier, and on the next morning hiked down the canyon so that I could be casually sitting on a rock as they came up the trail from LeConte Canyon. I have rarely seen people as surprised as they were when they found me! After our reunion and joining them for their last trail night, the next morning we were up early to hike out over Bishop Pass. This photograph was made shortly after we crossed the pass and began our descent to the trailhead.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.