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

Melting Ice, Gaylor Lake and the Cathedral Range

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Melting Ice, Gaylor Lake and the Cathedral Range
Melting Ice, Gaylor Lake and the Cathedral Range

Melting Ice, Gaylor Lake and the Cathedral Range. Yosemite National Park, California. June 29, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The distant Cathedral Range rises above the melting ice of Gaylor Lake, Yosemite National Park.

Near the end of June last summer I hiked up here late in the day with my friends Mike and Karl. This was a somewhat unusual season in the Yosemite Sierra, in that there had been a lot of snow during the winter season and it had continued right on into spring. Consequently, the high passes opened up later than usual, and on a very late June day when things would typically be a bit more summer-ish, it looked more like late winter up here when we arrived.

I’ve visited this place quite a few times, but had never seen quite this scene before. More typically, the snow and ice are completely gone by the time I manage to get up there, and a typical visit usually entails arriving late on a warm afternoon and then hanging out in the sun while waiting for the evening light to come on. This time we were in snow before we crossed the ridge before the lake, and we had to think a bit about just how to head down toward the lake since the usual path was covered in snow. The lake itself was (obviously, judging from the photo!) still covered in ice, though melting was underway and the surface was a jigsaw puzzle of alternating blue pools and white ice.

We found a location near clumps of trees on rocky talus slopes above the lake to do our photography. In this photograph I shot down the length of the lake to mostly fill the frame with the melting ice. Beyond a small rocky rise at the end of the lake, the terrain drops off towards the meadows of the Tuolumne region, and beyond rise the peaks of the Cathedral range in early evening light.

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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are 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, Photographs: Yosemite

Morning, Ellery Lake

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Morning, Ellery Lake
Morning, Ellery Lake

Morning, Ellery Lake. Eastern Sierra Nevada near Yosemite. June 29, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light on Ellery Lake and surrounding mountains near Tioga Pass.

Yosemite National Park visitors who enter or leave the park via the Tioga Pass Road route are familiar with the sub-alpine lakes just east of the pass including Tioga Lake, Ellery Lake, and many smaller ponds. Ellery Lake – which is made a bit higher by a dam on its outlet stream – is the last lake before the drop-off into Lee Vining Canyon, and a place that people often stop during the summer months. Even during the very early and late season it is a popular place – in the early season right after the road opens you can often see back-country skiers on the steep slopes above the lake.

I rarely pass this particular cove near the upper end of the lake without stopping. However, I have also found it a tricky photographic subject! Very early light is blocked by the very tall ridge whose lower slopes are seen in the distance in this photograph. It is often quite windy. Late in the day the color of the light can be special, but it also tends to be almost directly behind the photographer and to leave some deep foreground shadows. There are other places like this – they seem like they should be photographic “slam dunks,” but they turn out to be more difficult than they appear. Or maybe it is just me! :-)

In any case, on this late June morning I had earlier finished photographing in the Mono Lake area and was heading back up towards Tuolumne Meadows. And, as always, as I drove around the curve above this cove I caught a view of the lake out of the corner of my eye and couldn’t resist stopping.

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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are 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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Desert Pool, Panamint Range, Morning

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Desert Pool, Panamint Range, Morning
Desert Pool, Panamint Range, Morning

Desert Pool, Panamint Range, Morning. Death Valley National Park, California. February 21, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A salt spring pool on the salt flats in Death Valley reflects winter dawn light on the east face of the Panamint Range.

Sometimes I hear people describe how they think or imagine that landscape photography is done, and I wonder where they get their ideas. I will acknowledge that there are many ways to shoot landscape, ranging from working very slowly and carefully to produce a single image, to shooting like crazy and seeing what you end up with. But often people dismiss approaches closer to the latter and assume that the former is the “right way” to shoot landscape.

In my experience it isn’t quite that simple. Sometimes the experience is like certain others in which long stretches of time during which one seemingly accomplishes nothing or perhaps just looks and thinks are suddenly followed by quick and intense spurts of work that come almost as a surprise and may be over as quickly as they begin. This little morning shoot in Death Valley along the edge of a the salt/mud flats where the water from a small salt spring spreads across the flats and forms shallow pools was one of these. Very early in the morning, well before dawn, it was difficult to know what the best shooting option might be. There were clouds in the sky that promised to block the dawn light and everything seemed gray and flat. I wandered a bit, not sure where or what to shoot, and finally, more or less by chance, ended up at this spot that I had visited earlier on this trip. It occurred to me that even if the light wasn’t great I could possibly find a photograph that included this water. So I stopped and began to unpack in no particular hurry.

As I walked across the wash toward the area of the spring, much to my surprise it began to appear that there might be some interesting dawn light after all. I quickened my pace and headed toward the area of the shallow pools, and when I arrived there a moment later I could see some color on the top of the Panamint range. I quickly found a decent foreground pool and as the surprising light worked its way down the front of the range I began photographing. I first made several exposures at much shorter focal lengths, including a larger portion of the sky and the foreground. Then I quickly moved the tripod to place this pool in the center of the frame and hold the reflection of the range. I had little time to contemplate as the light was changing very quickly. I had just enough time to find my composition and make a few exposures, and within moments the light was gone.

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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are 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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Morning Sky Reflected in Desert Stream

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Morning Sky Reflected in Desert Stream
Morning Sky Reflected in Desert Stream

Morning Sky Reflected in Desert Stream. Death Valley National Park, California. February 21, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of water from a salt spring reflecting cloudy morning sky above Death Valley.

Moments before I made this stark and, I think, desolate photograph of the shallow stream from a salt spring flowing slowly over the flats of Death Valley and reflecting the light from morning clouds, the Panamint Range mountains at the left side of the frame had been briefly lit by colorful sunrise light. But this light lasted only a couple minutes and shortly everything went largely gray.

The patterns of the very shallow and slowly flowing water as they spread out across the flats and reflected the light from the cloud filled sky intrigued me as soon as I arrived at this location. But before I made this photograph I had taken a different approach, positioning the camera down very low and very close to the water so that its reflective surface filled a larger portion of the frame and then lining things up to catch the first light on the Panamints and its reflection. But when that passed so quickly, it seemed like the flat and gray effect could also make an interesting photograph. When I made the exposure I wasn’t quite certain, but I think I was leaning towards a black and white rendition of the scene. Frankly, there wasn’t a lot of color to work with! The sky was mostly clouded over, though there was a hint of faded blue in a few spots. Any color in the Panamints was muted by the distance and haze. The mud is essentially gray and white (where salt has formed) and the water held less color than the sky!

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Email
Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.