Tag Archives: north

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

Winter Fog, Waterfall, and Trees

March 10, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Fog rises from Yosemite Valley to obscure the view of forest and waterfall

There is so much to write about this photograph – about the place itself, about what happened on this morning and at this moment, about the feeling of this subject, about the idea of making a photograph with so little detail, and even about some technical stuff. However, I’ll try to keep this relatively short… for now.

I made this photograph on the morning after the opening of the Yosemite Renaissance XXIX exhibit in The Valley. Because of this event, there were quite a few photographers in the Valley, including a number of friends, and it seemed like most everyone planned to be out early on this morning to make photographs. My morning plans are often a bit vague – sometimes as vague as “I’ll get up early and see if there is any winter fog around” – and that was the case this day. It was overcast, but I thought that it was possible that either some light might appear from the east or that there might be mist and fog cloaking the upper ridges around the Valley. In any case, we eventually ended up a the famous (or infamous, depending upon your point of view! ;-) Tunnel View, where others we knew were already set up. A favorite winter subject in the Valley is the fog, whether it is seen close up as it floats in front of you in one of the meadows or seen from above from a high point such as Tunnel View. I put a long lens on my camera and began to focus mostly on the fog among the trees on the Valley floor.

This fog almost seems like a living thing, constantly in motion and evolving in unexpected ways. One moment there may be little of it, but within moments it thickens and drifts into view. Or it may drift unexpectedly into the Valley from behind you. It rises up the cliff faces, momentarily obscures and then reveals features, and sloshes back and forth across the Valley. For the most part on this morning it seemed to be drifting among the forest trees, occasionally filling nearly the whole floor of the Valley. As we photographed, the fog moved in our direction along the Valley floor, and then suddenly but silently rose to cover our position, its cold and damp body momentarily limiting our view to a few feet in front of us. I turned my attention, and my camera, downwards toward the trees immediately below the overlook since they were still somewhat visible, and as the fog began to thin once again Bridal Veil falls became momentarily visible once again above the soft edge of the fog.

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: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Winter Morning, Rising Steam

March 9, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Clouds of steam rise into the winter morning sky above Manhattan

It must have been a slow week in Manhattan. When we arrived at our Canal Street hotel on Christmas Eve day, they upgraded us to a better room and put us something like 20 floors up, in a room with huge windows with a view to the east over lower Manhattan. A week later, on the final morning of our visit, we were enjoying this view one last time before checking out and starting the process of heading back to the west coast. (First a few hours in Brooklyn, then a trip to JFK, then a long flight…) It was a cold early morning, not too long after sunrise, and there was a high shield of thin cloud to the east. The sun was coming in under these clouds at a low angle and back-lighting the rising columns of steam all over the city, so we made a few final Manhattan photographs through the window before heading out.

Photographs: Music & Musicians, Photographs: People

Conductor Guillermo Figueroa

March 8, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Conductor Guillermo Figueroa directing a rehearsal of the Symphony Silicon Valley

This is one of the photographs from my three-year project photographing professional classical musicians. As part of the project, which is now in its second year, I have been “embedded” with the Symphony Silicon Valley (the descendent of the former San Jose Symphony). Most of my photography has been during rehearsals, when I can work fairly freely backstage, photographing musicians in ways that they are not usually seen. Most people have a limited familiarity with classical musicians, mostly seeing them from a distance in performances when they are formally attired. One of the goals of the project is to show aspects of their lives and work that are not seen as often – the rehearsals, what goes on backstage, even what they do between rehearsals and concerts.

There is a lot of photograph in this world! I’m fortunate not only to have the cooperation of this wonderful group of musicians (thanks SSV people!) but to be personally very familiar with this world. My training is in the field of music. At one time I played professionally, and at another point I worked as an orchestra stage manager. So I have developed some sensitivity to music and musicians that might be difficult for other photographers to achieve. Many interesting things happen so quickly that you might not even see them if you did not know to look. The work of the conductor is but one example. From instant to instant the conductor’s facial expression changes, sometimes radically, to both respond to and anticipate changes in the music. The position and motion of the hands and, for that matter, the whole body, conveys important but fleeting cues to musicians. I studied conducting a bit at one time, but I think I have learned more about it in the past two years by closely watching and becoming aware of the visual elements of the conductor’s work. Layered on top of that is the basic photographic need to be constantly aware of light, both in the technical and expressive sense, and how to place the subject in a context that “works” visually. This is a very different sort of work that photographing landscapes, but it is equally challenging and rewarding!

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

Forest, Drifting Fog

March 6, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Winter evening fog drifts among forest trees, Yosemite National Park

Winter is a special time in Yosemite Valley, and during the first weekend of March it was special for all the usual reasons and a few others. The Yosemite Renaissance XXIX opening reception opening took place on Friday and the Range of Light Film Festival was going on all weekend. Not only did this provide opportunities to view beautiful interpretations of the Sierra and the park by a wide range of visual artists, but it also meant that the place was full of painters, sculptures, photographers, and film-makers, among whom were a good number of personal friends. It seemed like wherever I went I found people I knew. Many were doing their work, but there was a relaxed quality that led to plenty of sitting on rocks, looking at views, conversations, and even a few dinners.

But even without all of that, the Valley seems to me to be at almost its most attractive at this time of year. We arrived on a rainy late afternoon, with snow falling along the upper reaches of the Valley. Clouds and fog and mist were everywhere, blocking the light one moment and then moving to allow bits of light here and there to highlight ridges, trees, cliffs, and peaks. Even photographers who usually shoot somewhere else headed to familiar lookouts such as Tunnel View, and I found myself there more than once. For me, the primary attractions of that place at this time of year — in addition to running into friends and yakking it up — are the vignettes of bits of cloud-shrouded ridges and trees above and the frequent fogs floating through the forest on the Valley floor. So I put on a long lens and pointed the camera either up or down towards these subjects and watched the show. As I was photographing the fog drifting among trees down in the Valley, as in this photograph, I remarked to a nearby photographer friend that this subject forced me to toss out any attempt to work slowly and thoughtfully and methodically. The fog was inconstant motion among the trees and momentary compositions would coalesce in one or another part of the Valley below, only to disappear as quickly as they had appeared. In the time it takes to carefully frame and compose an image the momentary subject would simply disappear, either become completely obscured or else losing its magic as the fog thinned. Quick and instinctive work was and is the only thing that works here!

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: north

Winter Fog, Waterfall, and Trees

Conductor Guillermo Figueroa

Forest, Drifting Fog

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