Tag Archives: nevada

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Tree-Covered Ridge, Mist

November 6, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Mist from an autumn storm obscures trees growing on a steep ridge near the rim of Yosemite Valley.

Since I’ve written about this series of photographs of cloud- and fog-shouded subjects in Yosemite Valley several times during the past week, I’ll keep the background short on this one. I used a long lens to isolate small scenes in which the clouds of an autumn storm alternately hid and (sometimes barely) revealed trees, cliffs, and rocky spires along the rim of Yosemite Valley.

In a few of the photographs I was thinking about how close I could get to having very little or almost no detail in the photograph and still make it work. Here the only real detail is in the diagonal of trees and rocks that is mostly obscured by the clouds, with only a few bits of tree being a bit darker. What I’m thinking of is more along the lines of suggesting the presence of the bit of cliff and trees than actually trying to show it explicitly.

This is, for me at least, a tricky thing! The temptation is to boost contrast in post to get more definition from the tree shapes, but that quickly leads to something that has a very different mood than that of the actual scene – and which can easily look phony. I think I’m heading in a direction I like here, but I don’t think I’ll know for sure until I have a chance to try a print in a week or so.

(By the way, if your monitor is even a little bit “off,” you may see some colorations in this monochrome image that aren’t really there. Sorry! :-)

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Trees, Cliffs, and Clouds

November 5, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Clouds from an autumn storm drift among trees and spires along the rim of Yosemite Valley.

This is another in the series of photographs of mist and clouds and trees and cliffs during an autumn storm in Yosemite Valley. Here the clouds float among trees and spires along the rim of the Valley. I was looking for something very much like this as shot in the Valley, and here I spotted an interesting angle in the valley rim and then waited as the clouds floated in and out of the scene for a moment during which just enough of the detail of rocks and trees would be revealed for a moment.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Sunrise Rainbow and Virga Above the Buttermilks

November 3, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Brief sunrise light produces a rainbow and virga over the Buttermilks in the eastern Sierra Nevada above Bishop, California.

I have a story to tell about this photograph and how it came about. I’ve been in the Buttermilks — the rounded hills between Bishop, California and the actual Sierra Nevada — on a number of previous occasions. I’ve photographed there in the early morning when the first light hits these hills and the peaks of the Sierra, and I have some potential images filed away in my mind, waiting for a time when the light is right. I also know the Sierra well enough – though certainly not completely nor perfectly! – that I can pick up on developing conditions that might not apparent to someone less familiar with the range.

On this early October morning I was camped up in the Bishop Creek drainage. The forecast was for rain and wind and, sure enough, during the night the wind picked up and it began to rain. I woke before dawn and at the first light it was apparent that it would be overcast. This is not necessarily a bad thing for photographing fall color, but it can mean that subjects that would otherwise work at dawn might need to wait. I was thinking about how to modify my aspen photography plans when I noticed a bit of incipient color in the still-dim clouds, and it occurred to me that a special set of conditions might occur. Although I couldn’t see to the east from this campground, I know that sometimes clouds above the Sierra end a ways to the east over or beyond the White Mountains, and when this happens there is a narrow band of clear sky right above the horizon — and if everything works out just right a strip of dawn light shines through this gap, first hitting the clouds and then working its way down from the peaks to the lower foothills before quickly disappearing and leaving very bland light.

No sure thing at all, but I decided to dash down the road (past the steady stream of aspen photographers streaming up the road!) and see if I could get to the Buttermilks in time. I left the main road and headed up a side road that I know, somewhat resenting a (very reasonable!) 25mph speed limit near some roadside residences as I began to see the clouds above the crest starting to light up. As I hit the last section of gravel road the sky began to glow and I sped up, heading for a specific spot where I had photographed this scene before. With seconds I saw the light pick out a band of virga (rain that does not reach the ground) and a rainbow began to form in front of the eastern escarpment as I arrived at the hilltop where I planned to shoot. I quickly set up my tripod and mounted the 70-200mm lens (which I already knew would be the right one for this shot) and literally ran up a nearby knoll which I knew would put the foreground hill in a decent place in the composition. I was ready just as the soft light hit the foreground and I made this photograph. Within a minute the rainbow as gone!

Sometimes you just get lucky…

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Grazing Cattle and Aspen Groves, Conway Summit

November 1, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Cattle graze in front of large aspen groves near Conway Summit, California.

Just about anyone who has every photographed aspens in the area around Lee Vining is probably familiar with this location – and I’ve certainly shot there quite a few times. From highway 395 the aspens extend west and up toward the peaks of the Sierra crest, and the at the right hour in the late afternoon the backlight can light up the leaves of the trees. When I visited this time the trees were in transition with some still green, others very colorful, and some almost leafless already. I was also lucky to have some clouds at the end of several cloudless days of photography. (Normal people like perfect blue sky, but photographers are not normal – we tend to like weather!) When I saw the clouds starting to form above the crest early in the afternoon I thought that something interesting might happen later near Conway so I made a point of heading that direction.

This photograph features, of all things, cattle – not my usual subject, perhaps! The area where these aspens grow seems to be at least as much a pasture as it is aspen groves, and I’ve seen cattle grazing in this spot before. (See comments for a note from a member of the family that owns the land.) As the clouds created shadows over the higher slopes in the background, for a moment the sun still hit the foreground trees and these cattle.

This shot also ties in with my recent post on using various focal lengths for landscape photography, in that this photograph was made with what some might regard as an unlikely landscape lens, a 100-400mm zoom! But in this case, this lens at 250mm was just what I needed to more tightly frame the bit of foreground pasture and sunlit trees and compress the distance between them and the shadowed hills beyond.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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