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

Eastern Sierra Autumn Sunrise

Image November 10, 2023 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Piute Peak Sunrise — Autumn aspen trees at the shoreline of a subalpine lake below sunrise light on Piute Peak.

Autumn aspen trees at the shoreline of a subalpine lake below peaks in sunrise light.

I have photographed at this location for so many years that I no longer count on it to be a place to find something new… unless it looks like conditions might be unusually good. (I do still find other interesting subjects “in the neighborhood.”) But it is my tradition to check in for a short visit every year, and that’s more or less why I was there this October.

The morning was somewhat unpromising. There was a lot of color, but the patterns were unusual — green where I would have expected yellow and orange, and full color in places where I might have expected it to be green. And it was… windy. Very windy. Capturing a nice reflection on the waters of the lake was a lost cause. But sunrise is sunrise, and it is almost always a beautiful sight this ridge.

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

Autumn Evening, Aspen Grove

Image November 9, 2023 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Quiet light in a grove of autumn aspen trees in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

These “evening”quiet light” aspen scenes really appeal to me. While the colors can be extremely intense in full daylight, especially when the trees are back-lit, the soft light lowers the contrast level and allows the details in the shadows to emerge and the leaf colors to be a bit more true. (We have to scale back the exposure quite a bit to avoid blowing out the red channel in digital photographs of colorful leaves in full sun.) The whole atmosphere changes at these times, too. It is often cool and quiet and still.

How to compose such photographs is an interesting question. To some extent, I work pretty subjectively in this regard, just looking at the scene and thinking about balance and primary subject and then doing a bit of quiet analysis and “edge patrol.” But “when I know, I know.” Here I was looking for the even spread of trunks across the scene, but I also like the little “mountain” of yellow leaves in the foreground… and the visually dissonant presence of the small, green conifer adds just a bit of tension.

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Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature

Dense Autumn Aspens

Image November 6, 2023 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A grove of dense and colorful autumn aspen trees, to the east of the Sierra Nevada.

This dense grove of autumn aspen trees, perhaps just past the peak of their seasonal color, provided an opportunity that isn’t easy to find in these groves — a slightly elevated position looking down into and across an aspen forest that stretched away up a nearby hillside. I was actually here to photograph something else, a distant landscape. But once I finished that task I moved on and spent some time with these trees.

Unlike many of the trees in my aspen photographs, these are not technically in the Sierra Nevada. Instead they are in a smaller range located east of the Sierra. The range may be smaller, but it is still high, with peaks over 11,000′. Being in the rain shadow of the Sierra, these mountains are rather dry, but there’s enough moisture to sustain very large stands of aspen trees.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Ritter and Banner, Morning

Image November 4, 2023 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Mount Ritter and Banner Peak — or, as they are sometimes known, the Ritter-Banner Massif — dominate the Sierra Crest skyline in the portion of the range between Mammoth Lakes and Yosemite. They are high, dark, massive peaks. Surprisingly, they are not on the Sierra Crest, but instead on a sort of spur range that runs separates two forks of the San Joaquin River. (The actual crest is much less impressive and is located further east, where it runs north from the Mammoth Mountain ski area.)

I have been almost all around these peaks, having backpacked on both sides. On various day hikes from my backcountry camps I have explored the base of the peaks, too. But this view is from quite far away, a good distance east of the Sierra and out in the start of the basin and range country.

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G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: nevada

Eastern Sierra Autumn Sunrise

Autumn Evening, Aspen Grove

Dense Autumn Aspens

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