Photographer Ivan Makarov recently emailed to let me know about an beach cleanup and photography event at Panther Beach on the Pacific Coast north of Santa Cruz. (Ivan, I have shot at Panther Beach – this past winter – and it is a really wonderful location! Proof below… ;-) Follow the link for more information.
Last Light, Panther Beach. Pacific Ocean North of Santa Cruz, California. January 11, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Aspens and Cliff, North Lake. Sierra Nevada, California. October 4, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Aspens with their last autumn leaves agains the backdrop of a cliff, North Lake.
This is a photograph from last fall’s autumn color photography in the eastern Sierra Nevada. This photograph was made on a blustery and snowy morning at North Lake, in the area above Bishop, California. I had finished shooting some of the more typical North Lake autumn scenes and was wandering back along the road when I started seeing the nearly bare aspens against the roadside cliffs.
This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
keywords: aspen, tree, white, trunk, branch, yellow, green, gold, leaf, autumn, fall, cliff, rock, face, texture, pattern, red, brown, nature, scenic, landscape, detail, north, lake, bishop, creek, sierra, nevada, mountain, stock
Aspen Leaves at North Lake. Sierra Nevada, California. October 5, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Colorful autumn aspen leaves at North Lake, California.
After being snowed on at North Lake the previous morning, I returned again on this day and concentrated on photographing aspen leaves, branches, and trunks in a grove along the side of the lake and near the famous “tree tunnel” that so many have photographed here.
To add one point… while I love the color and light of the large aspen groves and love to photograph their astonishing colors as well, I think I have come to prefer photographing the smaller details of these groves: a few leaves, some branches, perhaps against a background containing some rocks or trees that have lost their leaves.
keywords: colorful, fall, autumn, foliage, leaves, aspen, grove, forest, red, orange, yellow, gold, trunk, branch, north, lake, califoria, usa, bishop, creek, nature, stock, sierra, nevada, range, mountains
Autumn Snow Squall, North Lake and Piute Crags. Sierra Nevada, California. October 4, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Autumn snow falls on Piute Crags above the fall foliage at North Lake. Sierra Nevada, California.
This photo marks – knock on wood! – the return to more a regular schedule of posting new photographs.
As always, there is a bit of a story behind the photograph. Last weekend (the first October weekend of 2008) I managed to do one of my annual aspen chasing expeditions, timed to catch the trees as they change from green to golden, yellow, red, orange, and a thousand intermediate hues. I left the Bay Area on Friday afternoon and drove over Tioga Pass, stopping there for a moment to feel the force of the first incoming Pacific storm of the season. After dropping down from the pass and stopping for dinner at Whoa Nellie Deli I continued on to Bishop, where I checked into a motel at 9:30.
I wasn’t certain what the next morning would bring since the weather report called for the passage of the weather front and then some showery weather and dropping snow levels. When I left Bishop well before dawn the stars were out, so I was optimistic. As I drove west and up into the Bishop Creek drainage, however, the clouds increased, and by the time I arrived at North Lake before 7:00 a.m. it had clouded up completely. No problem, I thought, the air is still and I like shooting in overcast conditions, especially with the saturated colors of the aspens. I got out of the car, put my camera on the tripod, grabbed the rest of my gear, and started towards a spot with a good shot. Within moments the wind whipped up and it began to rain, very quickly turning to wet snow. I was quickly back in the car, hoping to wait it out and see what developed.
Before long there were breaks in the clouds, and although the cold wind was blowing like crazy and there was still some intermittent precipitation, I decided that the conditions were special enough that I’d better get out there and start shooting. (While I can imagine more comfortable conditions for photography, sometimes the most interesting conditions are not comfortable.)
Eventually I made a fairly extensive set of photographs from various areas along the shoreline of North Lake. This one was made near the outlet of the lake, looking back across the nearby grassy shoreline, and past wildly colored aspen trees to the more distant Piute Crags, where a snow squall was partly obscuring the summit.
keywords: fall, autumn, storm, squall, snow, piute, crags, north, lake, bishop, creek, aspen, grass, meadow, water, tree, forest, branches, cloud, scree, talus, landscape, scenic, stock, nature, wilderness, shore, shoreline