Tag Archives: mountains

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Colors and Morning Reflections

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Autumn Colors and Morning Reflections
Colorful autumn aspen tree line the shoreline of an Eastern Sierra Nevada lake.

Autumn Colors and Morning Reflections. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Colorful autumn aspen tree line the shoreline of an Eastern Sierra Nevada lake.

This year’s fall Sierra Nevada photography has been challenging in several ways. The pandemic has changed our travel routines, of course. But the unprecedented wildfire season in the West has impacted photography, too. Autumn wildfire smoke has always been present here — it is one of the causes of the lovely soft light during this season — but this year large areas have been blanketed with an oppressive pall for weeks. When I arrived in the Eastern Sierra recently the smoke was so bad that, for example, I could barely see Mono Lake as I drove past it. I continued far south to where is was less awful, but it was a factor during the entirety of my visit.

The day before I made this photograph the smoke had abated a bit. It was inescapable but thin enough to let in sunshine. But late that day a bank of thick smoke descended on my campsite, and I wondered what the morning would bring. It brought more smoke. I went to a familiar nearby location and thought about how to mostly exclude distant views of the smoke-draped landscape. I decided to focus on some very red trees along the shoreline of a familiar lake, mostly framing photographs to emphasize the trees and de-emphasize the longer views.

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 and Amazon.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Alpine Lake, Storm, and Rainbow

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Alpine Lake, Storm, and Rainbow
A trail crosses a rise beyond an alpine lake as rain begins and a rainbow appears against stormy skies, Kings Canyon National Park.

Alpine Lake, Storm, and Rainbow. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A trail crosses a rise beyond an alpine lake as rain begins and a rainbow appears against stormy skies, Kings Canyon National Park.

This photograph comes from a wonderful trip into the Kings Canyon backcountry seven summers ago. A group of five photographers who have been doing such things for almost twenty years (I’ve been going along for a decade) packed in to a remote location at 12,000′ and set up a basecamp. We spent a week there photographing the heck out of the nearby landscape of granite, lakes, and peaks — and enjoying the camaraderie that comes from working together in the wilderness.

By the time I made this photograph I had settled thoroughly into the routines of living and photographing in such a place. I’ve often photographed while hiking through the Sierra, but working from a base-camp gives me time to explore more carefully, to get to know the character of a place, and to experience it in a variety of conditions. Although it was the tail-end of a drought season, we had rain from time to time, and on this afternoon I photographed an area full of lakes as the afternoon showers arrived.

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 and Amazon.

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

Recovering Forest

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Recovering Forest
A recenty-burned Yosemite forest shows signs of regeneration.

Recovering Forest. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A recenty-burned Yosemite forest shows signs of regeneration.

Wildfires have recently been on our minds here on the west coast. In the San Francisco Bay Area the bad fires began about a month ago when an unusual and very active series of electrical storms set off dozens of fires and shrouded the area in smoke. Shortly after that our extremely dry summer and unusually hot August temperatures set off huge fires from California to Oregon, historic in size and intensity. (As of this date one of these fires has set a record for the largest fire ever in California, doubling the size of the previous record fire.) We’ve had a month of “spare the air” days now.

September and October are traditionally the fire season here, though not on the scale that we are experiencing this year. It is a time of hazy skies and, if you go to the mountains, active fires. Over the years we’ve moved from regarding fire as something to be avoided to thinking of it as something to be managed — it is a natural component of healthy wildlands. I’ve changed my attitude as well, at least when it comes to normal, modest fires, and I’ve been trying to see the beauty in burned landscapes. In early September I had planned a short Yosemite backpack trip, but (ironic!) I had to back out at the last minute due to smoke. I was on my way home when I stopped at this location, a place where I stop and photograph every year, especially when dogwoods bloom. Last season a fire burned over this spot and, blackening many of the largest trees and destroying undergrowth. But a few trees survived and they are now thriving.

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 and Amazon.

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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

Oak and Granite, Autumn

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Oak and Granite, Autumn
A small oak tree in deep shade at the base of a Yosemite Valley granite cliff.

Oak and Granite, Autumn. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A small oak tree in deep shade at the base of a Yosemite Valley granite cliff.

Back in 2012 I took a somewhat later-than-usual trip to photograph fall color in Yosemite Valley. When I think of Sierra Nevada fall color the high country aspens, mostly but not exclusively on the east side of the range, come to mind. Those colors tend to be an early October thing. But colors appear a bit later on the west side of the range, eventually working their way down to the foothills and finally the Central Valley. In Yosemite Valley beautiful colors come from cottonwood, black oak, dogwood and a few other sources, typically arriving in late October and peaking around Halloween.

For reasons that I can no longer recall, this time I ended up in the Valley a couple of weeks later. There was still sufficient color, and it came with the added bonus that light snow had recently fallen. (Unlike summer and winter, which tend to be just what you would expect, the transitional fall and spring seasons often bring surprises.) I took a walk along a section of the north wall of the Valley and photographed this small tree in the shadows at the base of a very tall granite cliff.

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 and Amazon.

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.