Tag Archives: nature

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: New England, Photographs: Travel

Carpet of Color

Image Leave a comment
Carpet of Color
“Carpet of Color” — A nearly unbroken carpet of colorful autumn trees in New Hampshire.

As I have shared New England fall color photographs you may nave noticed that I often contrast that spectacle with my more familiar western aspen groves. One of the main reasons I made this photograph was practical — I wanted to illustrate just how significant that difference is. Aspens in California tend to cluster in relatively small and separate groves. Even the larger groves are typically surrounded by conifers, scrub, or open terrain. In autumn, the effect is often to produce small areas of color set off against areas with little or no fall color.

This photograph illustrates the difference in New England. I made it near a high point on New Hampshire’s “Kancamagus Scenic Byway, ” among the most popular places for viewing East Coast autumn color. You are looking down at a hardwood forest full of different trees of different colors. And the trees shown here are a tiny fraction of the forest that was spread out before me, rising from valleys toward the high ridges — with almost everywhere the same wild blanket of colors.

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

Lake, Ridges, and Haze

Image Leave a comment
Lake, Ridges, and Haze
“Lake, Ridges, and Haze” — Hazy morning light on ridges, cliffs, and a subalpine lake, Sierra Nevada.

It is fair to say that I got a lot of photographic mileage out of this view during our stay here a few years back. I’ve shared numerous photographs of it, though in different formats, times of day, and conditions. Despite the presence of so much other visual material, it dominated our consciousness. I suppose that part of the reason is that it was within minutes of our campsite, but it is a remarkable setting, too.

I photographed this version in the morning. At the start of our visit we had quite a lot of rain, but that diminished later on, and the sky was mostly clear on this day. The view looks roughly northeast, so the sun was just clearing the ridges out of the frame to the right. This light, coming in at an angle, illuminated the atmospheric haze and emphasized the atmospheric recession of more distant ridges. It also produced what almost looks like rim light on the exposed places on the face at the left.

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

Lake in Shadow

Image Leave a comment
Lake in Shadow
“Lake in Shadow” — Morning light strikes cliffs above a shadowed Sierra Nevada lake.

For more than a decade, during most summers I have spent a solid week in the Sierra Nevada backcountry with fellow photographers, base-camped at various beautiful locations. (Travel and other things have interfered during the past two years.) These trips give us the opportunity to focus on photographing a limited area in a variety of conditions. On these trips we live in one small area for a week, and photograph only what we can walk to, frequently revisiting subjects several times.

This lake was just below our camp, and of course we photographed it many times — morning and night, sunshine, rain, fog, you name it. Most often I hoped for light that would open shadows in the landscape, but on this morning I decided to go with the shade and let portions of the image remain dark. In fact, the luminosity curve of this photograph is weighted strongly to the dark end of the scale. But I think that it captures the quiet mood here as the sun worked its way up the far valley toward “our lake.”

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: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: New England

New England Leaves

Image Leave a comment
New England Leaves
“New England Leaves” — Close-up photograph of New England autumn leaves, New Hampshire.

This miniature landscape comes from our visit to New England to photograph fall color a couple of years ago. (Wow, has it really been two years?!) With the help of some New England natives who set us straight on timing, we showed up at exactly the peak of color in this area of New Hampshire. More accurately, we arrived a day or two ahead of the peak and left the day after. Yes, it changed that quickly, and on our final morning it was apparent to use that the colors, while still remarkable, were starting their inevitable fade out.

But this photograph came from that peak day or just before. Almost every imaginable autumn color was present that day, I think I managed to squeeze most of them into this photograph of an area measuring not more than a couple of square feet. I’d like to tell a story of how hard I had to search for this scene, but the truth is that colors like this were everywhere — and I made the photograph at the quiet end of a parking lot filled with leaf-peepers.

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.