Tag Archives: nature

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Snow-Covered Trees, Cliff

May 20, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Spring snow blankets trees in front of a Yosemite Valley granite cliff face

This past few days has been pretty busy, as I work on making prints for an exhibit that opens on June 2. It looks like the prints are now all made — but the work of trimming, matting, framing, and otherwise preparing them continues over the next few days. The exhibit is “Transitions: Winter Into Spring — Photographs by G Dan Mitchell and Friends.” It features photographs that I made during this year’s winter and spring Yosemite Renaissance artist-in-residency in the park, and photographs by a group of talented photographers and friends including Jerry Bosworth, Franka Mlikota Gabler, Charlotte Hamilton Gibb, David Hoffman, Vidya Kane, and Kerby Smith. The show opens at Gallery 5 in Oakhurst, just outside the park, on June 2 and runs through the end of the month. There is a public reception at the gallery on June 9. If you are in the area, please come and visit!

This photograph is not in the show, but it was made during the project. As the “Winter Into Spring” title of the show suggests, I was in the park frequently from February through the April, working in conditions that ranged from freezing cold and wintry right on through warm and sunny. This photograph came from an early spring day when one of the last snow storms of the season passed through the valley and dropped a few inches of snow — just enough to frost the trees and turn the meadows white. It didn’t last long – most of it melted by the following day, and when I returned a week later I photographed in warm spring sunshine.

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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: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Oak Trees, Spring Snow

May 18, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Snow storm clouds obscure cliffs behind black oak trees

I’ll continue by string of winter(-ish) photographs with another in what is getting close to the end of the new work I produced during my Yosemite Renaissance artist-in-residency this past winter and early spring. I always photograph in the park during these seasons, but this year’s residency provided me with far more opportunities — ranging from utterly freezing winter snow storm days to the sunny and warm early days of spring.

I made this photograph on a spring day, believe it or not — one of those early spring days during the transition from the cold season toward the coming warm season when winter reasserts itself. A small snow storm was passing though Yosemite Valley, and it dropped a thin layer of snow down to this low elevation. Although this snow did not last long, while it fell the Valley was briefly transformed back into a winter landscape. When I think of winter in the Sierra, conifer trees tend to come to mind, so this scene with oak trees under a thin layer of snow was special, with dark trunks and branches set against the snow and cloud-filled sky and a muted view of Valley cliffs.

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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: Wildlife

Five Cranes, Morning Sky

May 15, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Five sandhill cranes pass overhead against blue morning sky

Cranes just might be on my mind this week due to a little snippet on a television program I saw last week. In it a couple of people, a photographer and a wildlife proponent, we sitting along the edge of a watery area in, if memory serves, the state of Nebraska. All it took in this brief clip was the sound of these birds, the site of them in flight and on the ground, and all of the associations with being in their ancient presence came back. If you’ve experienced it, you know — the moist air, the cold, the short winter days, and then the sound and sight of these birds.

There are lots of ways to photograph these birds. I often place them in the landscape, but here I wanted to focus on the birds themselves, as a group of them flew overhead in late-day light. Compared to certain other birds you might see in the same places and at the same times, the cranes have a more “stately” pattern of flight. They takeoff at a relatively low angle, and they often fly horizontally for a good distance before they gain much elevation. In smaller groups they fly beak-to-tail in undulating lines. Their wing motion is slower than that of, say, geese. Oddly, however, for birds that often seem so low-key, there are exceptions. One is the familiar “dance” that they do during mating season, when individuals extend their winds and jump into the air. In addition, I’ve sometimes caught then doing very strange things in flight — sudden twists and turns, beak pointed up toward the sky, and more.

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

Small Aspen Trees, Autumn

May 13, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A tightly spaced grove of small Eastern Sierra aspen trees with fall color

I like to say that it is never too soon to start thinking about fall color… though I forgive you if you aren’t sure that May is quite yet the right time. To be honest, I came across this photograph of a familiar subject earlier today while I was backtracking through my archive of older raw files. I have a bunch of urban/street photographs queued up for posting here soon, but I feel like sharing a few more natural photographs first.

The location is in a popular area for Eastern Sierra Nevada fall color, but there is nothing exactly iconic about this particular grove – though it is a place that I’ve returned to every fall for years. I suspect that something about it caught my attention on my first visit, and that whatever that “something” is, it is not a feature that every viewer will spot. I recall stopping here the first time I visited. It was late in the day and the sun was about to drop behind the surrounding high ridges. I was surprised to see this densely spaced grove of slender trees, with trunks exposed below their fall color crowns. I stopped and made a few photographs, and the spot has become one of my touchstones in the Sierra Nevada.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: nature

Snow-Covered Trees, Cliff

Oak Trees, Spring Snow

Five Cranes, Morning Sky

Small Aspen Trees, Autumn

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