Tag Archives: nature

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

Three Aspens, Granite

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Three Aspens, Granite
Three autumn aspen trees standing against a granite wall, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Three Aspens, Granite. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Three autumn aspen trees standing against a granite wall, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Those of us who have spent a lot of time in the Sierra — and the story is similar for other locations — gradually accumulate “personal spots” that might not make much of an impression on others but which we greet like old friends each year. Mine include a particular rock outcropping in Tuolumne Meadows, a particular flat rock in the Yosemite backcountry where I’ve frequently placed my cook stove, a small grove of trees nestled in a bend along an Eastern Sierra road, a high and barren lake in the Southern Sierra, and quite a few more. I’ll bet you have a few such places of your own.

This little group of three slender aspen trees set against a jumble of rocks s is one of those spots. It is very accessible, but there’s an excellent chance that if you were nearby you passed without noticing. Yet virtually every autumn I end up stopping and photographing them again. (Yes, there are other photographs of them in my collection.) They are “the same,” yet they are also different every time I visit — the leaves may be green, yellow, a combination, or gone. The light may be intense in the morning or soft and blue in late-day shadows. So I return, and I photograph them again, and I mark another season with each return.

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 and Amazon.

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

Aspen Reflections

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Aspen Reflections
Autumn aspen trees reflected in an eastrern Sierra Nevada pond.

Aspen Reflections. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Autumn aspen trees reflected in an eastrern Sierra Nevada pond.

Each year at about this time I ask, “Is it ever too early to start thinking about fall color?” The answer, of course, is no. Autumn is my favorite season for all kinds of reasons — the colors, of course, but also the return of cooler temperatures and “interesting” weather and shorter daylight hours. The period between Labor Day and the arrival of late-autumn snow is my favorite time in the Sierra. There’s nothing as beautiful as a late-September or early-October day in the high country.

As a person who has photographed Eastern Sierra aspens a lot — and who has written a book on the subject — the way I see this subject has evolved over the years. While I’m still impressed by a hillside completely full of colorful trees, I am constantly looking for other ways to photograph this subject. Here I aimed the camera down toward the surface of an Eastern Sierra pond, framing to exclude anything but the brilliant colors of a grove on the other side of the water.

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 and Amazon.

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

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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Edge of the Light

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Edge of the Light
Light at the edge of a Pacific Coast fog bank on a summer evening.

Edge of the Light. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Light at the edge of a Pacific Coast fog bank on a summer evening.

By this point I am quite familiar with this coastline below California’s Monterey Peninsula — I’ve been visiting almost continuously since I was a child and my parents took the family down there for day trips and rare overnights in Monterey. We went to Point Lobos all the time, where I spent days investigating tide pools and hiking trails along the shoreline.

All of this may partially be my way of explaining why I might make a photograph like this —not a typical “tourist shot” of the rugged Big Sur coast, but something much quieter. The fog is a near-constant presence here, often coming onshore and muting colors and light and condensing the visual world. When it isn’t over the land it is often just off shore — perhaps far enough out that you have to look for it or, as here, right along the shoreline. The edge of the fog bank can be a place of amazing light — dark in distance beneath the clouds and surprisingly bright along the edges and where beams of light reflect off the water.

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 and Amazon.

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

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Garden Gate

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Garden Gate
An entry gate to the Japanese Garden, Portland, Oregon.

Garden Gate. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An entry gate to the Japanese Garden, Portland, Oregon.

Some years back our youngest son and our daughter-in-law lived in the lovely and quirky city of Portland, Oregon. Since it is (just barely, if you have a lot of endurance!) a one-day drive from the San Francisco Bay Area we managed to get up there somewhat regularly, and we came to like the place a lot. Among other things, it is a city of gardens, including several that we visited more than once. This photograph of a stone walkway passing through a gate comes from the lovely Japanese Garden.

Having roots in a non-west-coast part of America (long ago, but they stick with you), I can understand how the character of towns along the Pacific coast is difficult for some to understand in other parts of the country. But Oregon is a wonderful place that is hard to characterize in any single way. There is a long tradition of a kind of counter-culture there, but there is also a large suburban population. Don’t believe the simplistic, politicized claims that the city is “under siege” or a hotbed of some kind of awfulness that requires federal intervention.

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 and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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