Tag Archives: nevada

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Nevada

Amargosa Sky, Morning

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Amargosa Sky, Morning
“Amargosa Sky, Morning: — Early morning sky above Amargosa Valley and the Amargosa Range mountains.

Although this photograph is from eight years ago, I recall this morning as if it were last week. One day during my annual spring sojourn in Death Valley I decided to get up early and drive out of the park to the east, passing though the triangle of the park that extends into Nevada to get to one of the many ghost town sites in this region. The place gets a fair number of visitors — to the extent that it has more recently been fenced off to protect it — but on this morning I was just about the only person there.

Although I was there mainly to photograph the decaying structures, the remnants of this town sit on the edge of a vast expanse of open desert landscape. This view looks across the wide Amargosa River Valley toward the Amargosa Range that runs along a good part of the eastern boundary of the park. The light was stunning just after sunrise, and thin clouds were visible for a while until stronger light made them less visible as the sun rose higher.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

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

Aspen Layers

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Aspen Layers
Layers of autumn color in shaded aspen groves

Aspen Layers. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Layers of autumn color in shaded aspen groves.

Overall, the current Eastern Sierra Nevada fall color season has seemed less stunning than in the best years. The start was promising, with good high elevation color arriving on the expected schedule. But later on a number of areas that frequently offer up amazing color did not quite deliver. However, a few points are in order. Even in a less-than-astonishing year there is great color to be found if you just look around a bit. (And some of it is not in the usual iconic locations.) And a lot depends on the specific moment you arrive — the day and even the time of day.

This grove may serve as an example. We first spotted it while driving past in the early morning, when the sun had not yet arrived on this spot. We continued up the road a bit, thinking we’d turn around and photograph it a bit later. It turned out that “a bit later” produced some pretty uninspiring light on this subject… so we returned the next day and timed our visit more carefully. Photographing fall color in shaded light can produce a very different effect than photographing in full sun, with more color subtle and varied color with more shadow detail. This grove offered an additional compositional detail — the heights of both the small and large trees produced a sort of arch shape.

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

Autumn Aspens In Canyon Light

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Autumn Aspens In Canyon Light
Colorful autumn aspen trees in an Eastern Sierra Nevada canyon

Autumn Aspens In Canyon Light. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Colorful autumn aspen trees in an Eastern Sierra Nevada canyon.

The quality of the light, as we all know, is incredibly important in photography — where it comes from relative to the subject, its color, whether it is harsh or filtered, how it differs in various areas of the frame, and much more. In some cases great light can make a not-so-exciting subject “work” as a photograph, while poor light can make it difficult or impossible to make an effective photograph of a great subject. In landscape photography we don’t generally have much ability to control the light. But we can learn to anticipate what it may do, and we can try to time our photographs for when the light may be at its best.

The window of opportunity for this light on this subject is very small. The idea here was to photograph this grove during the very short period when shadows, created as the sun dropped behind high ridges in the upper canyon, moved across the frame. At this point the backlight would intensify the colors of the trees, yet it would be slightly muted. Additionally, the haze in the far upper canyon would glow in the backlight. When we arrived at this spot the light was far from ideal, and I think that the people who accompanied me may have wondered what I saw. But a few moments later we all experienced the brief transition of wonderful light that I came here to see.

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.

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

The Edge Of The Grove

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The Edge Of The Grove
Autumn color at the edge of a grove of white-trunk aspen trees.

The Edge Of The Grove. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Autumn color at the edge of a grove of white-trunk aspen trees.

I photographed this grove of past-peak-color aspens growing at the edge of high desert sage country on a very cold October morning — as we drove to this spot the thermometer in my vehicle read 9 degrees Fahrenheit at one point!Many of the trees in this location were past their prime color at this point, but there were still yellow leaves mixed with the brown among the stark white trunks.

The Eastern Sierra Nevada is typically a wonderful place to look for autumn aspen trees every October. There is a lot of fall color again this year, though something seems different. (In truth, every aspen season is “different” than all o the others…) It started more or less at the typical time, and there was — as still is, as I write this — good color in many places. Yet, some locations where I would have expected good or even great color didn’t produce this time. On the plus side, that gave me all the excuse I needed to investigate some wonderful out-of-the-way locations that I might have ignored in a year with great color in all of the typical places.

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.

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