Tag Archives: mountains

Lakes Meadows, and Trees

Lakes Meadows, and Trees
“Lakes Meadows, and Trees” — Trees and shorelines along a series of Sierra Nevada lakes.

This is another photograph from my mid-July backpack trip into the Eastern Sierra Nevada, right below the crest of the range just outside Yosemite National Park. We spent three nights and four days in the area, and because it was an easy trip with low mileage, I had plenty of time to photograph morning and evening. This is an early morning photograph of a series of lakes, captured while my trail companions were still in their tents.

The area presented some unusual terrain. Our trip began at the lower end of the lake that is barely visible in the far distance, so the first few miles of walking were nearly level. From the end of that lake we climbed no more than perhaps fifty more feet to the middle lake and our campsite. Talk about easy walking! The water in the foreground belongs to a small pond that was less than a one minute walk from my campsite.


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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Douro River at Pinhão

Douro River at Pinhão
“Douro River at Pinhão” — The Douro river bends past the town of Pinhão, with hillsides covered by vineyards.

I am going to use this post to give a shout-out to Portugal Green Walks, the company we used to organize our May walk in the Douro Valley hills. (I have no financial relationship with the company — just a pleased customer.) We spent a week in this region, walking on six days between cities in a loop that started and ended in Pinhão, the small town along the river bank near the lower edge of the photo. They could not have come up with a better conclusion to the walk. On the second-to-last day we rounded a hill and soon came upon this spectacular view of the Douro River and Valley.

A few minutes later we arrived at our lodgings, checked in, and walked out onto their terrace overlooking this view, where we enjoyed almonds from their orchard and a glass of wine. We truly felt that we had arrived as we sat and took in this remarkable scene. We were not quite finished yet — the next morning we had a short, easy downhill walk to Pinhão, where we began our trip back to Porto.


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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Orchard and Vineyards

Orchard and Vineyards
“Orchard and Vineyards” — Lush hill country, filled with vineyards and orchards, between Sabrosa and Alijo, Portugal.

One of the days of our Douro Valley walk in Portugal included a section between Sabrosa and Alijo. Between them we descended into this lovely valley full of vineyards and olive groves. We followed turn-by-turn directions from the walk’s organizers, and because of this I did not always track our precise location. That’s my long way of saying that I think this is the valley of the Rio Pinhão, though I’ve so far been unsuccessful in this spot on maps.

Regardless, it was a beautiful area. We came down a steep hill from the heights of Sabrosa, passing around and through vineyards. We reached the bottom of the valley, followed a road for a short distance, crossed a bridge and began the climb up the other side of the valley, a walk that would eventually bring us to our accommodations in the town of Alijo.


Leave a comment or question using the form. (If you are reading this on the home page, click the article title to see the full article and the comment form.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Morning Forest

Morning Forest
“Morning Forest” — An “imaginary landscape” photograph of a foggy morning forest scene, using in-camera motion bur.

From time to time I experiment with ways to portray the landscape in a more abstract fashion. I often refer to these photographs as “imaginary landscapes.” While the line between “real” and “imaginary” can be pretty fuzzy in photography, these photographs make no pretense of portraying the objective facts of the scene. (To be clear, no photograph is fully objective, but I digress…)

In this case I used intentional (or perhaps unintentional — you decide) techniques to blur the details of the scene, leaving the biggest elements intact but leaving a lot to the imagination. The original scene is the edge of the forest next to a small lake on a foggy morning.


Leave a comment or question using the form. (If you are reading this on the home page, click the article title to see the full article and the comment form.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.