Tag Archives: north america

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

Forest Meets Meadow, Yosemite

July 31, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A small sunlit meadow filled with shooting star flowers meets the edge of a dense lodgepole pine forest, Yosemite National Park.

For some reason many of the photographs I made on my recent trip to the Yosemite high country seemed to focus on the trees and the forests, and perhaps a bit less on the rocky peaks and prominences of the park. This photograph was made in a place that is not “special” in the ways that specialness is often measured in this park. As far as I know, it has no name, though it is not too far from Olmsted Point. It is simply a little area like so many others in this part of the Sierra, but one that I feel a connection to now that I have revisited it on several occasions and gradually pushed out the boundaries of my familiarity with it.

I first stopped near this spot along Tioga Pass Road several autumns ago on an evening when fog blanketed the nearby ridges. Very close to this spot there was a break in the fog, and I could see the sunset light and its effect on the fog clouds, so I pulled over and made some photographs. A year or so later, now having an actual awareness that there was a pull-out at this spot in the road, I stopped again on a summer morning for no particular reason and saw that a faint trail headed off into the lodgepole forest that was mixed with glacial boulders. I walked a short distance out on this path and found a small pond that I photographed, and I filed the location away as one to investigate again later.

On this July’s visit, I put this spot on my agenda and made a plan to visit it early on morning after photographing first light on a nearby ridge. Because there is no single attention-grabbing icon at this spot, rather than leaving my car with a target in mind I wandered slowly into this forest and simply kept my eyes open. (And I tried not to think about the mosquitos that are always thick in the lodgepole forest at this time of year!) First I stopped at the pond that I had previously photographed; then I picked up that trail and followed it through the forest, past other ponds, and across some glaciated granite near the edge of this small meadow filled with shooting star flowers, with the light coming through the forest beyond.

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

Juniper Trees, Morning Light

July 30, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light falls on rugged Juniper trees growing in glaciated terrain near Yosemite’s Olmsted Point.

The Yosemite high country along (and beyond) Tioga Pass Road, which crossed the Sierra through the national park, is a land shaped by glaciers. The night before I had decided that the morning photography subjects would be in an area of granite domes, glacial erratics, small ponds, and rugged granite-bound trees in an area generally centered around the iconic Olmsted Point viewpoint.

My first subject, generally defined, was going to be an area of large granite slabs on a ridge that I knew would be hit by the early morning sun shortly after sunrise. I arrived in the general area after dawn but before the direct light arrived here, and I headed up the slabs to scope out possible subjects. The atmosphere was quite hazy, which can be a mixed blessing for photography. On one hand, distant subjects are muted an indistinct. On the other, the light on closer subjects can be diffused and soft, and this helps fill in shaded areas. It also means that more distant background elements can be muted both in contrast and color saturation. When I found this rugged cluster of old juniper trees, I looked for a composition that would catch the first light striking them from behind and also include a bit of the more distant exfoliated dome as background.

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Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: People, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Stairs, Person Walking

July 29, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A person walks past the bottom of a stairway along Stockton Street, San Francisco.

When I posted a color version of this photograph a week or so ago I mentioned that there was also a black and white version – and that I was up in the air about which I prefer. I’m still not certain, though I’m leaning more towards this monochrome version. While there are some aspects of the subtle colorations in the other version that I am hesitant to give up, I think that the angles and forms and masses of dark and light may be more the focus in this version.

Since I told the story on the original post I’ll keep it short here. I was in the Stockton Street area of Chinatown in the morning and had crossed the “bridge” at the termination of a dead end alley that sits above Stockton. There were two stairways down to the street level where Stockton emerges from a short tunnel. As I went down the stairs I thought that the angles and the light in the stairwell looked interesting as forms and was working out a composition or two when the figure walked through the frame and I reacted quickly to make a photo that is quite a bit different from what I was thinking of when I started.

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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

California Ground Squirrel

July 28, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Three photographs of a ground squirrel along a shoreline trail at Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

Since I don’t quite think these photographs warrant separate posts, consider this to be my first three-for-one offer on the blog – three photographs in one post! I had taken a break from seascape photography on my recent visit to Point Lobos State Reserve south of Carmel and at the upper limit of what we might think of as the Big Sur coast. I was at the top of a bluff overlooking the “point of the sea wolves,” the actual spot that gives this park its name, and was trying to photograph the rather small number of pelicans that were coming past from time to time. (This was an odd day for photographing pelicans – fortunately that wasn’t the main reason I was at Point Lobos. Ten or fifteen minutes would go by with no pelicans at all… and then a giant flock or 30 or more would cruise by and be gone.)

So, I was parked at a spot along this trail on top of the bluff, waiting for interesting birds to come by when a couple stopped to look, too. As they stood there, this squirrel emerged from the brush and came right up to them – obviously not the wildest wild animal around. (Later I had to chase it off the bench that my camera bag was sitting on.) Since there weren’t any bird in photography range and there was a very close squirrel, and since I was standing there with a 100-400mm zoom on my camera, I figured I might as well get some close up shots for my gallery. This seemingly well-trained squirrel (is there a squirrel modeling school somewhere?) went quickly through a delightful sequence of poses: first all fours on the ground and looking quizzically to my right; then up on hind feet to eat a seed; and finally lowering the paws holding the seed to look ever so cutely at something to the right.)

So, now I have squirrel photographs.

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G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: north america

Forest Meets Meadow, Yosemite

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Juniper Trees, Morning Light

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Stairs, Person Walking

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California Ground Squirrel

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

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