Tag Archives: mount

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

Mount Conness and Ragged Peak, Forest

July 31, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Evening light slants across forest below Ragged Peak and Mount Conness, Yosemite National Park, California.

This photograph was made from the Tuolumne Meadows area with a long lens, and it includes the heights of Mt. Conness at the far right, the lesser prominence of Ragged Peak at the left, a shaded ridge running above the Young Lakes basin, and a closer bit of typical Yosemite forest mixed with a bit of dome-like granite, with sunset light slanting across from the left. By the way, I wondered for some time where the name “Mt. Conness” came from. I finally looked it up during the past year, and I found out that the namesake was Senator Conness, one of the two California senators during roughly the Civil War period – Conness was responsible for the legislation that initially set parts of the current Yosemite National Park aside for protection and preservation. All in all, a person deserving of a peak with his name.

Although photographed here from some distance, I know parts of the landscape encompassed by this photograph quite well, including the visible portions and some that are hidden from sight in this photo. For a number of years I have made a habit of visiting the Young Lakes area at least once each season, often late in the season when the summer crowds have dissipated – though I have also visited very early in the season, and I have the mosquito stories to prove it! Young Lakes lie on the other side of the shaded ridge traversing the center of the photograph, and I’ve often looked up at that ridge from the lakes. I have also hiked up into the valley on this side of the ridge. The trail to Young Lakes crosses the wooded area beyond the sunlit trees and passes through a beautiful semi-meadow area below Ragged Peak, a place where beautiful lupine flowers may be found at the right time of the year and from where one can obtain some panoramic views of a lot of high Yosemite Peaks. On one of my first visits to Young Lakes, it was so late in the season that the backcountry ranger who was patrolling the area apparently had little to do, and one morning we ended up having a very long conversation along the shore of one of the lakes. I remarked that a particular little gully in roughly the area of Ragged Peak looked like it might be interesting, and he shared enough information about the route that I chose to use it rather than the regular trail on my return to the trailhead. Mt. Conness, here the only peak or ridge still fully in sunlight, towers above everything else in this area. I have not climbed it, though I have investigated some trail less areas around its base and I’ve looked at it from almost every side.

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, Photographs: Yosemite

Tuolumne River, Alpenglow

July 20, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Tuolumne River curves through Tuolumne Meadows as alpenglow colors the landscape, Yosemite National Park.

I have written previously about several topics that connect to this photograph. For one, I have described a certain type of atmospheric condition in the Sierra that may bring astonishingly intense evening colors when clouds above the mountains end to the west of the range, allowing the final sunset light to illuminate the clouds from beneath. On this evening it looked like all the pieces were in place for such a show, but I know that while these conditions make the light possible, they do not guarantee it – and on this evening there was a wonderful, subtle glow just after sunset… but not the imagined overwhelmingly brilliant light.

For another, I have written about scoping out a shot ahead of time, sometimes earlier the same day and sometimes weeks, months, or even years earlier. Earlier on this day I decided to take a walk in the meadow without my camera gear, with precisely the task of “scoping out” in mind. I wandered around somewhat aimlessly, following my nose this way and that to investigate lots of interesting things and places that I might have passed by on a more purposeful hike. Before heading back to camp for an early dinner I had selected three possible subjects that I thought might work well.

I have also written about how little control we have over our subjects when shooting landscape. We can anticipate and guess and be fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time with the right gear and the skill to know how to use it, along with the ability to see what is happening – but in the end, in many ways, we take what we can find and work with it. When I arrived back in the evening an hour or so before the time of interesting light, I had a feeling that the first subject I had seen earlier might be the most promising. This was a scene that placed Lembert Dome between a couple of groups of trees and a bit of the river when viewed from the middle of a footbridge crossing the Tuolumne. I arrived and set up and began the planned wait for what I hoped would be very interesting light. However, as sunset approached, I could see that the shot I had planned was not going to work in the light that I found myself working with. So, on the spur of the moment and acting essentially intuitively, I picked up the tripod and camera and moved to a nearby spot and rather than making a tightly focused shot of the dome, I zoomed way out to include a gentle curve in the Tuolumne, a sandbar, and a line of foreground trees, and I made this photograph of the much subtler-than-expected post sunset light.

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

Morning Light, Tioga Tarn

July 17, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light, shining over the shoulder of Mount Dana, strikes a shoreline meadow along one of the Tioga tarns, Yosemite National Park.

I’m pretty much completely unable to resist making photographs of trees back-lit by morning light, especially when they are in meadowy areas along the shorelines of sub-alpine or alpine lakes. The condition is even worse when the water reflects the backlit trees, and almost unbearable when the light also illuminates some of the shapes below the water’s surface. It is a personal weakness. I freely admit it! ;-)

I made this photograph early one morning, but not too early, in the general area of Tioga Pass. The high country on both sides of the pass contains quite a few small seasonal ponds filled by snow-melt water. Many are shallow and many, but not all, are partially to completely surrounded by meadow. Often small trees may grow in the meadow areas along the banks of the tarns, with the old explanation being that they are “gradually filling in the meadows,” though I’ve also heard that they find it harder to grow in these areas because of the higher water table. I made this photograph with a rather long lens. In some ways it might have been better to work closer to the trees and use a shorter lens, but here it was also a better idea to use the long lens to protect the area surrounding the tarn, an area that is perhaps just a bit too accessible to visitors and which needs a bit of additional care and protection. By the way, if you want to see green high country scenes like this one, you’ll have to go very soon this year! After a very dry winter, much of the water is already drying up in the high country and the meadows that would typically be at their height of green right about now are already turning brown quickly.

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

Tree, Fractured Sandstone Wall

June 29, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A lone tree stands against the fractured textures of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park, Utah.

Time for one more Zion photograph. Actually, it may not be quite the last from this April visit to that park and other beautiful areas of Utah. It almost doesn’t matter exactly where this photograph was made, since red rock and green trees can be found all over the area. Basically we were driving along a park road in the afternoon, with eyes wide open and looking about for photographic subjects, when we stopped alongside a section of the cliff that was still mostly in the shade, and in front of which beautiful trees were growing.

I liked the conjunction of the hard, reddish rock with its vertical cracks and horizontal patterns… with a single living thing, the very green tree growing up against the cliff face in the shade. Sometimes the colors of the rock can seem almost unreal. I feel a bit that way now when I look at the intense red-yellow colors in the upper right corner of the frame.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: mount

Mount Conness and Ragged Peak, Forest

Like this:

Tuolumne River, Alpenglow

Like this:

Morning Light, Tioga Tarn

Like this:

Tree, Fractured Sandstone Wall

Like this:

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

Share this page:

Like this:

Share this page:

Like this:

Share this page:

Like this:

Share this page:

Like this:

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