Tag Archives: north

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

Lakeside Trees and Rocky Slope

November 15, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Lakeside autumn aspen trees reflected in shoreline water

This was a long and productive day. We started before dawn, waking up in darkness and heading up into the mountains to arrive at a likely spot to photograph fall color before sunrise. We began by photographing a familiar lake from a somewhat different perspective, working from an elevated position above the lake. A bit later we moved to other locations in the big east side mountain valley, generally working our way around so that we could photograph aspen color before the direct sun arrived. We stopped for breakfast at a mountain lodge before heading back down into Owens Valley and then turning north. We ended up north of Lee Vining in the late afternoon, and eventually we finished photography and began the long drive across the Sierra and back to the San Francisco Bay Area.

This is one of the early morning photographs. I had finished with a somewhat iconic Eastern Sierra subject, though photographing only parts of it that might or might not be recognizable. Soon the direct sunlight began to hit this subject, washing out the colors and ending my photography of that subject. No matter, I just pivoted a bit to my right and found lakeside trees where the direct sun had not yet arrived, and I photographed these trees in the softer shadow light.

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

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

Aspen Groves, Sierra Crest

November 14, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Aspen groves follow the contours of foothills rising toward the Sierra Nevada crest.

Just for fun… a fall color photography in black and white! I have the greatest respect for our photographer predecessors who set about photographing the beauty of fall color with only monochromatic shades to work with. It can be done, but it isn’t quite as straightforward as photographing fall color with today’s capable digital cameras. It is all too easy to let those colorful leaves end up having monochromatic tones that aren’t that much different from the same trees in the green season! Light helps, as does some selective use of filters — glass filters in the old days and post-processing analogs applied to digital files today.

I made this photograph close to a rather popular fall color photography location, though the exact location isn’t quite in the usual spot. It presented a challenge or two that I won’t describe here. The light was, to use the old euphemism, “interesting” at this point. The late afternoon light was coming in at a low angle and lighting up the trees nicely, but the sky was a bit tricky. Some high clouds were floating over the Sierra crest peaks, and their brightness posed a dynamic range challenge while their shadows fell across the peaks. There are many things I like about this scene — the way the curving forms of the groves lead away and up toward the Sierra crest peak, the long shadows, the alternation of sunlit ridge and darker valleys, and those distant peaks with a bit of autumn snow dusting their summits.

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

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

Trees, Meadow, Autumn Light

November 13, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Every autumn the Sierra Nevada experiences days when the air is full of wildfire smoke. It was only recently that I came to recognize that a large component of what I’ve always identified as “autumn light” is the atmospheric haze from wildfires — not just those nearby in the Sierra, but including the diffused smoke from wildfires further away in California and even beyond California’s borders. Yes, the lower angle light is part of the effect, but it is the soft and hazy atmosphere that is perhaps the most major element. I’m amazed that it took me this long to fully make the connection, but also happy to find there are still new things to “discover” and understand!

The atmospheric light in this photograph is the result of this effect. It was a very smoky day in Yosemite Valley — the sort of day when you might consider wearing a breathing mask. A big fire was still smoldering just south of Yosemite Valley, its smoke collecting each evening and then flowing downwards into the Valley. I made the photograph just as the edge of the shadow from nearby cliffs was beginning to cross this meadow, and the sunlight caused the smokey atmosphere to glow behind the trees. It is easy to think of wildfire smoke as an impediment to photography, but if you turn your thinking around just a bit you soon realize that these conditions can provide some very special and even lovely possibilities, ranging from the muted and slightly sienna tones of the light to enhanced effects of atmospheric recession. The potentials for producing moody and evocative photographs may actually increase on days like this!

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

Wildfire Smoke, Forest, Morning

November 12, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning smoke from the Empire fire settings among forest trees in morning light

In today’s post I’m likely to repeat some things that I have shared before, but I think they might provide some context for this photograph of a wildfire that was still burning through forest in the Yosemite National Park Sierra Nevada high country. I have gone through several phases regarding wildfires as a subject. Many years ago, having had my first backcountry experiences in less enlightened part of the Smokey The Bear era, I simply regarded all wildfires as unmitigated disasters. Later I came to understand the obvious: wildfires have always been a part of the natural ecology of forests, and they are necessary for forest health. But I still didn’t like them. After that I began to make an effort to see wildfires and their aftermath as possible subjects for photographs, and even as potential subjects for photographs of something beautiful. For a long time I failed at that, even though I tried. More recently, perhaps because I have been lucky to be in the right places at the right time, I think I have finally begun to understand how to photograph the subject and make it work. (A longer post on that broad subject may be coming before long!)

There have been quite a few wildfires in California this year. (And while I recognize their importance in the natural order of things, I am concerned that the number and extent of the fires is far enough out of the normal range to have some long-term negative effects.) I have had plenty of opportunities to photograph their effects. On this late October morning I was in Yosemite and heading out towards Glacier Point, thinking it might be my final opportunity to photograph there before winter snows close the road for the season. I was stopped in my tracks as I came around a large bend in the road and to a high, open overlook with views toward the Sierra crest. The smoke from the slow-burning late stages of this fire had settled into hollows and among the trees in the still air overnight, and it was just beginning to drift and rise in the early morning light, both softening the scene and emphasizing the varied contours of ridges and forest.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: north

Lakeside Trees and Rocky Slope

Aspen Groves, Sierra Crest

Trees, Meadow, Autumn Light

Wildfire Smoke, Forest, Morning

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