Tag Archives: morning

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

Peninsula Trees, Morning

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Peninsula Trees, Morning
Trees on a rocky peninsula catch the first morning sun at a Yosemite National Park backcountry lake.

Peninsula Trees, Morning. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trees on a rocky peninsula catch the first morning sun at a Yosemite National Park backcountry lake.

There’s nothing like have the time for a slow morning wandering the perimeter of a forest-lined Yosemite backcountry lake. We camped at this one for something like four nights back in 2014, when a group of us spent a week in the high country making photographs. Each morning, well before sunrise, it was down to the shoreline wander and photograph.

I love photographs of trees in back-light, but there are some challenges. The obvious one, of course, is that you are pretty much guaranteed to be shooting almost directly into the sun. But second challenge is that the scene between camera position and subject is often in the bright sunlight, even if the background is pleasantly shaded. Photographing on a lake can help with this issue since the water helpfully reflects that shaded background and is hardly affected at all by the direct light, aside from a bit of extra illumination of anything that happens to be floating on the water.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Creosote, Dunes, Desert Mountains

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Creosote, Dunes, Desert Mountains
Morning light on blooming creosote plants in the dunes, Death Valley National Park.

Creosote, Dunes, Desert Mountains. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light on blooming creosote plants in the dunes, Death Valley National Park.

While much of my recent visit to Death Valley focused on relatively out of the way locations and subjects, I did spend one night at the Stovepipe Wells campground/parking lot. (If you have been there, you understand the reference.) The idea was that sleeping there for one night would put me in the best location to photograph in the nearby dunes in the evening and again very early the next morning. This photograph comes from the morning session, not too long. before I packed my gear, headed back to my vehicle, made a quick breakfast, and drove to another of those isolated locations.

The ritual of morning photography in these dunes is familiar to me by now. I get up before sunrise so that I can arrive at the point of departure for my walk into the dunes well before the sun comes up. Getting to the locations where I like to photograph can take between 15 minutes and a half hour of walking. Once I’m in position I usually have to work somewhat quickly since the light begins to change quickly. I’ll usually photograph a bit in the soft pre-sunrise light first. Then the first direct light on the peaks to the west alerts me that the direct sun will be here soon, and I turn my attention to finding subjects to photograph in the moments when the light/shadow boundary moves through the scene. I made this photograph considerably later, just as the increasingly bright light was a about to begin washing out the subtle early colors.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Tuolumne Canyon, September

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Tuolumne Canyon, September
Wildfire smoke colors the morning light on domes above the Tuolumne River, Yosemite National Park.

Tuolumne Canyon, September. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Wildfire smoke colors the morning light on domes above the Tuolumne River, Yosemite National Park.

Back in 2014 a group of us spent a week photographing in the Yosemite backcountry. We packed in to our first locations, spent a few days there, then moved along and ended up near the location of this photograph in the canyon of the Tuolumne River. While many have an impression of the Tuolumne formed by its leisurely passage through the Tuolumne Meadows area, other sections present a very different view.

Our stop here coincided with a very destructive wildfire in Little Yosemite Valley, and on the afternoon of our arrival the smoke had block the sun as ash floated down from the sky. Later much of the smoke blew in other directions, yet there was still a general smokiness in the atmosphere. That slightly brown haze colored the light in this early morning view of the canyon of the Tuolumne River.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

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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

Morning Shoreline

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Morning Shoreline
Early morning light approaches the rocky shoreline of a backcountry Yosemite lake.

Morning Shoreline. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early morning light approaches the rocky shoreline of a backcountry Yosemite lake.

With this photograph we are back in the Yosemite National Park backcountry at a lake that I’ve visited many times, including this occasion more than a decade ago when I joined a group of friends and photographers here fo a few beautiful early fall days. This late-september and early October period is my favorite in these mountains. Most of the crowds have left, especially in the backcountry, the mosquitos are gone, and most days are beautiful and filled with warm autumn light. (Of course… occasionally it does snow…)

This photograph is part of a series of images I have shared recently, all made on a morning spent walking around the perimeter of this lake. The earlier photographs were made before the direct sunlight arrived on the scene, but in this one the first early morning light has arrived on granite slabs just above the shoreline.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

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