Tag Archives: nature

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

Tall Autumn Aspen Trees

Image October 30, 2022 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Tall aspen trees with long, white trunks on an Eastern Sierra Nevada hillside.

The large grove of which these trees are a part is one that I’ve photographed for a long time. For the Sierra, it is a very large expanse of aspens, and they rise from a valley up the lower slopes of rock-strewn mountains. Most of then I have photographed them earlier in the season where the more colorful trees are mixed in with trees that are still green. But this time I visited later in October, and virtually the entire hillside was yellow, gold, and red. Note also the tall and straight aspen trunks — many Sierra aspens are much shorter.

I photographed these trees, as I often do, in soft, shaded light. The sun had not risen above the ridge behind them, so there were still fully in shadow — though the sunny edge of that shadow was rapidly approaching as I worked! Photographing aspens in these conditions reveals the difference between our own visual perception and what the camera “sees.” Looking at the scene you would say you saw colorful aspen leaves and white or gray trunks. But a photograph made in these conditions renders the trunks intensely blue. So the photographer faces a quandary for which there are several possible answers. One is to “go with the blue,” with the risk that viewers will be struck by what seems like unnaturally intense blue tones. Another is to shift the yellow/blue balance in post to produce something that better approximates the experience of looking directly at the trees.

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.

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Basin Mountain, Autumn

Image October 29, 2022 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Basin Mountain on an autumn morning, with a bit of fall color.

Unless you look closely, you might not see this as an autumn photograph, but the evidence is there. The most obvious indication is in the canyon that descends from the right of the tall peak, Basin Mountain. Just beneath the lip below the dark canyon you can spot a batch of very colorful aspen trees following the drainage into the valley below. There are some other subtle clues, too. The general golden-brown color of vegetation, including that in the high desert hills in the foreground, is typical of fall. Even more subtle is something in the quality of the light and atmosphere… which is what provoked me to detour to make this photograph.

I’ve long been intrigued by Basin Mountain, which rises to the Sierra Crest west of Bishop, California. From the east, the face of the peak is marked by a striking “basin,” and some interesting old trails switchback across its lower face. I’ve wondered what is in that basin, but I’ve never found the time to go up there. I would not typically make a photograph of such a subject at this time of day — late morning. The east side of the Sierra is often in less-than-lovely light at this time, especially if there is haze. But on this day there was merely enough haze to make things interesting, while higher clouds softened the light. So I detoured away from the start of my homeward drive to follow some backroads to this camera position where I could include the foreground hills and the peak.

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

Aspens, High Desert Valley

Image October 27, 2022 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Autumn aspen trees line a creek through a high desert canyon, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Heading across the Sierra early in the third week of October, I wasn’t certain what kind of aspen color I would encounter. There’s always some color at this point in the season, but in many years it has been diminished by wind and passing early weather fronts. But it seemed that these influences were muted this year, and as I approached Sonora Pass I was encouraged by seeing much more color than I expected. I turned south after crossing the pass I headed south where the forests of the Eastern Sierra begins to meet the high desert sage country. As I passed this small valley — where I had not really paid attention to the color potential in the past — I caught a flash of bright color below. I quickly turned around and backtracked to locate a better camera position.

Getting just the right conditions for these trees that grow along shallow canyons like this one is tricky, especially on the eastern slopes of the Sierra. Typical daytime light is often quite harsh, though that diminishes a bit with autumn’s lowering sun angles. But this time I got lucky, and broken clouds created patterns of light and shadow on the sage-covered hills. I set up and waited for the light to show up in the right places, and eventually it lit up the trees in the Vally and produced alternating light and dark patterns in the hills and mountains beyond.

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

Birch Trunks, Fall Foliage

Image October 26, 2022 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

White birch tree trunks emerge from a sea of fall color, New England.

For this California photographer, the autumn. Eastern Sierra aspens are some of the most interesting trees. Their leaves can certainly be colorful — often yellow/gold, but also ranging through orange and red. But their white or near-white trunks set them apart. They are fascinating no matter what the leaves are doing — spring. green, autumn color, or winter bare. I take it that there are aspens in New England, though their presence is overwhelmed by the other trees that we don’t see in California. As I photographed in the Northeast it seemed to me that that birch trees are more or less the aspen surrogates there, and they often provide similarly interesting trunk structures.

It is easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer mass of Northeastern fall color, to the point that it sometimes is difficult to make a photograph of the subject. I know that may sound strange — those colors are exciting, so why not just point the camera at them and make pictures? That’s exactly the problem. It is easy for the colors to be the whole show, so I look for other things that can tie them together in some sort of form. Tree trunks can often do this. A few trunks slicing, twisting, or slanting through a scene can give it direction and flow that is hard to achieve in a photograph of just the colorful leaves.

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G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: nature

Tall Autumn Aspen Trees

Basin Mountain, Autumn

Aspens, High Desert Valley

Birch Trunks, Fall Foliage

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