Tag Archives: national

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Receding Ridges, Afternoon Rain

October 2, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A passing afternoon rain shower mutes the details of Olympic Mountain ridges, Olympic National Park

I made this photograph on the same afternoon and evening as several of the other Olympic National Park photographs that I have posted recently. We went up to Hurricane Ridge in the late afternoon in hopes of photographing evening light across the valleys and mountains visible from that overlook, and we were partially rewarded. The conditions varied from moment to moment – occasional sun broke through clouds, atmospheric haze thickened and thinned, there were brief rain shows and a rainbow.

When we arrived the conditions were such that we imagined that they could evolve in any of several directions. We hoped for the possibility that the clouds to the west might break and allow light through. We worried that these clouds might thicken and cut off the late light entirely. When rain showers moved across the scene in front of us and dripped a few showers our way we thought that rain might develop. (We did get our light, but only briefly, and not for this photograph.) I made this photograph during that time when rain seemed like a distinct possibility. A semi-transparent curtain of showers gradually appeared over the valleys and range to our south, obscuring the details of the scene.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Lake and Rain, Dusk

October 1, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 5 Comments

A late-evening rain shower above the smooth surface of a rocky Sierra Nevada lake

From our camp site at a narrow point in the canyon among all of these lakes, we more or less had the option of going upstream to a group of several nearby lakes that were visible from our camp, or of going downstream and around a bend to an equally large group of lakes that were about 10 minutes away. The choice was often difficult – we didn’t always go the same direction, sometimes we might go upstream in the morning and downstream in the evening, or vice versa as the mood would take us. This, again, is an advantage of remaining in one area for an extended time – in our case we camped here for six nights with the primary goal of exploring and photographing.

On this evening I decided to go up-stream. Early on the trip I had made a very brief visit to what we regarded as the “upper lake” – though, in truth, there was one more further up the drainage that was likely inaccessible to us. On that first visit I had taken a direct route to the outlet stream of the lake and had then looked around a bit at this lower end before the light faded and I headed back to camp. On the evening when I made this photograph I started earlier, and instead of taking the direct route I went more slowly and wandered a bit, exploring the very interesting terrain among the lakes. Somewhat to our surprise, light rain cropped up again late in the day, and by the time I was approaching the upper lake there were showers here and stronger showers further down the canyon. Just before actual sunset, the sky turned intense pink as a bit of rain fell on the lake, imparting purple and pink tones to the landscape, and far down the canyon there was a faint glow from an area where the clouds cleared and a bit of blue sky shone through.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Ridge in Sun, Lake in Shadow

September 30, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early morning light from a nearby ridge is reflected in the wind-rippled “blue hour” surface of an alpine lake still in the shadows.

In this area of many, many lakes this almost seems like “yet another anonymous lake,” though it is a bit special in that it was a very short walk from the place where I was camped for six nights this late summer in the Kings Canyon National Park back-country. I could get out of my tent, wander up the hill toward a nearby ridge, and be at this location within perhaps five minutes or so. Consequently, I visited this lake several times, though always in the early morning hours when its surface was still in the shadow of a nearby large granite dome.

I’m fascinated by the very blue light found in the shadows of large mountains, domes, and cliffs. This lake is set in a somewhat deep bowl with a ridge of granite slabs along two sides, and a very tall glaciated ridge topped by a large dome on the other. These features prevent the direct sunlight from reaching the surface of the lake until some time after sunrise, and the cold, blue light remains here longer than in other locations. It was literally cold when I arrived on this morning, and gusty winds were periodically stirring up ripples on the lake’s surface. I decided to contour around one side of the lake to a point where I could gain a bit of elevation above its surface and where the warmer colors and diffused shapes of a nearby sunlit ridge were reflected, refracted, and otherwise distorted.

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

Solitary Tree, Glacial Erratic Boulders

September 27, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A solitary tree grows on granite slabs, surrounded by glacial erratic boulders

I made this photograph at a well-known and increasingly iconic location along the Tioga Pass Road as it passes along the Sierra high country terrain as it ascends toward Tioga Pass. This spot could probably serve as a prime lesson about how many other opportunities and ways to see there are for Sierra photographers, even when shooting with certain big, famous iconic features only a few degrees of tripod swivel away! (It is OK to photograph the icons, too – we all do it. But it is more rewarding I think, to also look beyond such things to see the much larger and equally beautiful world around them.)

The basics of looking beyond icons involve, well, looking around. A first step might be to go ahead and photograph the icon a few times, get to know it, and perhaps eventually shoot it when there is something a bit different about it – unusual weather conditions, a different time of day, out of season, etc. But the next step is to look in other directions, poke around a bit, and think about just what else contributes to the subjective experience of being in that place. I come to this spot frequently just before sunrise, and at that time the beautiful glacial erratic boulders strewn about the terrain are highlighted by the slanting, warm light and some of the more distant features are beautifully obscured by shadow and atmospheric haze.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: national

Receding Ridges, Afternoon Rain

Ridge in Sun, Lake in Shadow

Solitary Tree, Glacial Erratic Boulders

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