Tag Archives: national

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Clearing Storm, Lake, and Fog

Image Leave a comment
Clearing Storm, Lake, and Fog
“Clearing Storm, Lake, and Fog” — Evening fog drifts over moutains around a Sierra Nevada mountain lake as storm clouds clear.

I made this photograph on a rather remarkable Sierra evening. Late the previous day it had started to rain. Contrary to my expectations and experience, this turned out to not be just another afternoon shower — it absolutely poured, confining us to tents for hours and restricting our photography well into the next day. Finally the rain began to let up and we got out, though everything remained gray and wet. It wasn’t until the second evening, right around sunset, that the clouds finally broke enough to let in some light. But what light it was — perhaps a reward for our forbearance during the storm!

This photograph has been sitting in the archives for quite some time. I have looked at it in periodically and puzzled over how to handle it. The challenge was that the sky color was bright and extremely intense, so my exposure had to leave the foreground in deep shadow. This week I came back to the photo and figured out how to process it. Part of the challenge was technical, but it was also aesthetic — a question of how bright to make things and still retain the sense of oncoming twilight.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Instagram | Flickr | Facebook | Threads | Post | Email

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

Scroll down to share comments or questions. (Click post title first if viewing on the home page.)

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

A Storm Approaches

Image Leave a comment
A Storm Approaches
“A Storm Approaches” — Forest trees stand in sunlight while distant ridges are darkened by the clouds of an approaching Sierra storm.

At first look this might just seem like a photograph of a row of trees. It is late in the day, and the warm light lends color to this forest at Tuolumne Meadows, and it looks like a pleasant early evening. But that bluish strip at the top of the frame tells a different story. Look closely and you can make out a peak, and the peak is backed by higher peaks that are partially obscured by the dark clouds from an incoming storm.

We hear all the time that photography is about light, and there’s truth to that claim. (I would hold that it isn’t always “just” about light, but subjects usually benefit a lot from wonderful light.) One of my favorite situations is the one shown here — something nearby in lovely, warm light, but in the background a darker and more dramatic effect.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Instagram | Flickr | Facebook | Threads | Post | Email

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

Scroll down to share comments or questions. (Click post title first if viewing on the home page.)

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Imaginary Landscapes

Imaginary Landscape: Desert Mountains (Blue)

Image Leave a comment
Imaginary Landscape: Desert Mountains (Blue)
“Imaginary Landscape: Desert Mountains (Blue)” — An imaginary landscape, based on a photograph of desert mountains.

I am sorry to disappoint, but there is no place on this planet that looks like this. This photograph depicts an imaginary scene, produced not by AI but by my own manipulation of a photograph of a desert mountain landscape, transforming it into a scene of impossible peaks and extremely deep valleys. (The source material is from Death Valley, but I doubt that you could locate it in the real world, even if you know the park quite well. Take that as a challenge, if you will. ;-) )

Still, there is something compelling about the image, I think. Perhaps these are the sorts of mountains and valleys we dream of but never quite find. (Some viewers may notice that this subject has appeared here twice. I previously produced a monochromatic version of the subject.)

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Instagram | Flickr | Facebook | Threads | Post | Email

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

Scroll down to share comments or questions. (Click post title first if viewing on the home page.)

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Imaginary Landscapes

Imaginary Landscape: Desert Mountains

Image Leave a comment
Imaginary Landscape: Desert Mountains
“Imaginary Landscape: Desert Mountains” — An imaginary landscape, based on a photograph of desert mountains.

The words, “imaginary landscape” are used her to alert viewers to what they are (and are not) seeing. It would be lovely if you encountered an actual landscape that looked like this, but you won’t — this landscape is invented. I began with a “real” image of a range of desert mountains, and from there I deeply modified that original to produce the photographic fantasy that you see here.

The image grew out of something I wrote elsewhere about “honesty” in photographs. The subject is too big to fully deal with here, but one component was that it is troubling to me when photographers tacitly rely on the presumption that viewers will imagine the unbelievable to be real. I have no objections to morphing the “real” into fantastical things — but I am uneasy about relying on viewers’ misinterpretations of what they are seeing. This highly processed image was created to illustrate that idea.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Instagram | Flickr | Facebook | Threads | Post | Email

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

Scroll down to share comments or questions. (Click post title first if viewing on the home page.)

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.