Tag Archives: Mountain

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

Red Rock and Trees, Afternoon Light

December 13, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Back-lit trees in low afternoon sun light grow on rocky sandstone high country, Zion National Park

As much as I have come to love Zion Canyon itself, with its monumental cliffs, winding Virgin River, and cottonwood trees, something still draws me more strongly to the high country such as that found along the Mount Carmel Highway. (I’m sure that the “real” backcountry will eventually appeal to me just as much, but my “getting acquainted” process with Zion is still in its relatively early phase.) This higher elevation terrain, which can at first perhaps seem somewhat overly complex and even “disorganized – if that makes sense – has come to hold more interest for me photographically, though it has been a bit more difficult to figure out how and when and where to photograph it. I was intrigued by these wonderfully complex sandstone patterns of curves and lines when I first saw them, but initially had a hard time seeing coherent photographs among them.

Since my first visit – less than a year ago, believe it or not – I have now had the opportunity to revisit this area on quite a few days, and I feel like I’m starting to “get” its rhythms. Initially it was a matter of passing along the roadway through the park and catching glimpses of juxtapositions of features, bits of light or color, and various canyons and prominences and thinking “there must be a way to photograph that.” Return visits, in various types of light, during two seasons, and at all hours of the day have helped me figure it out. Among my favorite subjects here (and elsewhere!) are backlit trees, here combined with some low ridges and the swooping curves and textures of the wonderful red rock.

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.

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

Frost-Rimmed Oak Leaves, Autumn

November 15, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A very cold autumn morning brings a touch of frost to late-fall oak leaves in Yosemite Valley

Earlier this week I had (just barely) enough time for a very quick one-day up-and-back visit to Yosemite Valley. Such a visit, entailing a four-hour drive each way, and beginning with a 3:30 a.m. alarm going off, is not completely fun in all imaginable ways… but I won’t complain in front of people who might regard a visit to this valley as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I’m fortunate to live where I’m able to get to such a place and back in a day. The reason for the quick visit was that I had not made my annual “autumn leaves” visit to the Valley. In a typical year I do that right around the first of November (though I often think of it as a Halloween trip!) when the maple, oak, and dogwood leaves can be very colorful. I thought that I had missed the show this year, but over the weekend I heard from friends that there were still leaves in The Valley, so I figured that I would try to get up there for a quick visit.

Having gone there for decades, I no longer go straight for the usual iconic subjects – though I will photograph them when the conditions are extraordinary. Instead, I often end up poking around in odd corners, looking for things that are smaller and less easily seen, but which I associate with The Valley just as much as, say, Half Dome or El Capitan or Yosemite Falls. So, odd as it may seem, when I made my first stop of the day at El Capitan Meadow, with its iconic views of Sentinel Rocks and El Capitan on opposite sides of The Valley… I spent the first 15 minutes with my lens pointed down into a small patch of the Merced River where there were some interesting reflections, and then I wandered off along the river bank in a few inches of snow to photograph close-up views of the wonderful oak leaves rimmed with morning frost. It occurred to me later that some might think it is a bit odd to drive so far to photograph such things!

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Grove, North Bishop Creek

November 8, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

An aspen grove along North Bishop Creek in late afternoon light.

While I like huge, expansive groves of aspens, I also like small, isolated groups, especially when set against the background of what I think of as sage brush country. This group of trees is actually part of a long, thin grove that stretches along a small dirt side road up in the Bishop Creek drainage. The grove and the road are on my “must visit” list for my annual aspen-chasing trips to the eastern Sierra, so by now I’ve learned a lot about the “personality” of this particular spot. Like a number of other spots to which I return each year, you might not notice anything spectacular about this grove – but by means of repeated visits I have learned where to look for certain little subjects: a creek that flows past boulders beneath colorful trees, a particular thick grove of very thin-truck trees, groves of trees that seem barely taller than I am.

I made this photograph in what might seem like unlikely lighting conditions. It was late afternoon, and the trees were back-lit. The sun was close to dropping behind the very tall ridge that lies above and beyond the border of the photograph, so the light was angling across the several background ridges running down into the valley, and lighting their upper edges. And, of course, the leaves glow when the light come through them from behind.

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

Boulder Mountain Aspens and Distant Peak

November 6, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

A distant peak in alpenglow above the fall aspen color on Boulder Mountain, Utah.

We had anticipated the huge aspen groves on the flanks of Boulder Mountain as we approached on highway 12 from the west, having seen these trees earlier in the year, last April, when we crossed the mountain in spring before the new leaves appeared. We weren’t sure what we would find since, a) Boulder Mountain is high and b) we had seen high elevations aspens earlier during the trip that had almost completely lost their leaves. As we climbed toward the mountain from the town of Boulder, we began to encounter aspen color, but as we climbed it was apparent that we had missed the most colorful phase of this years transition.

That was OK, though. Even a bit pre- or post-peak, the aspen colors can still be spectacular. We stopped at the first place where we could see large aspen groves leading on up the incline toward the higher portions of the mountain and made some photographs. Then we continued on, rounding the shoulder of the mountain to find some very large and still quite colorful groves ahead of us. Although the light was starting to fade as the end of the day approached and as high clouds moved overhead, it seemed worthwhile to try to photograph these trees with a long lens. I continued shooting through sunset and soon the last direct sun left the trees and the more distant mountains. Here there is still a bit of light on the highest peaks to the east, seen faintly through the haze.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: Mountain

Red Rock and Trees, Afternoon Light

Frost-Rimmed Oak Leaves, Autumn

Aspen Grove, North Bishop Creek

Boulder Mountain Aspens and Distant Peak

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