Tag Archives: oak

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Oak Leaves, Reflections, Spring

March 23, 2015 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Autumn oak leaves, reflections of sky and sandstone cliffs on stained rock

This was a wonderful autumn day of exploration, re-visiting a familiar place, wandering with friends, and photography. We drove a short distance down a back-country road from our campsite to get to the start of a canyon, beginning in a spot where there is little in the surrounding landscape to indicate what is hidden here. We left our vehicles on the flats at the edge of a shallow valley and dropped into it. The valley quickly narrowed and it wasn’t long until sandstone walls towered above as we traced the meandering course of the stream that had cut this canyon. We travelled slowly, making detours as the spirit took us, and halting to concentrate on photographic subjects we discovered along the way.

Eventually we arrived at a sort of “half-subway” (referencing a well-known Utah landscape subject that is far from this spot) where the creek rounded a bend in a narrow section of the canyon and has cut away rock back underneath the overhead walls. At the lower end of this section we arrived at a wider flat area, though the canyon was still quite narrow, and we paused to eat, talk, make photographs, and ponder. Across the bend in the creek a smooth rock wall dropped down from beneath a thickly vegetated ledge to the banks of the creek, and water seeped from cracks below the ledge, providing enough water to keep the rock constantly damp, and autumn leaves from an oak tree on the ledge were scattered on the rock.

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

Tree and Morning Frost

March 3, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A frost-covered Yosemite tree in morning light

It was great fun to be in Yosemite Valley this past weekend for the opening of the 30th annual Yosemite Renaissance exhibition. This is the third time that I’ve had photographs in the show. (If you are in the Valley, drop by. It is in the Visitor Center Museum through May 10, after which it moves on to a couple of Central Valley locations.) The show features a wide variety of two and three-dimensional art by artists who focus on the Sierra and the park. The entry of mine that was selected this year was atypical for me — it includes people and it is humorous! I share it again here at some point, but for now I’ll just note that it features backcountry photographers engaged in an unusual activity. The show brings lots of other fun things: a chance to photograph in the Valley, opportunities to hang out with lots of photographer and artist friends.

I made this photograph on our final morning in the park. We headed out around sunrise, thinking we might find some shallow fog in meadows. There was a bit of the fog but it was dissipating quickly and we eventually ended up in this sunny meadow. I was immediately attracted to this large elm tree, covered in frost and backlit in the morning light. I made several photographs of it — and at least one other may appear here before long — and before long the air warmed and the frost melted.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Autumn Oak Leaves, Utah

December 2, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Fallen oak leaves on the moist floor of a Utah canyon

I found these newly fallen autumn oak leaves at the bottom of a narrow canyon in the southern Utah back-country. The spot is a sort of “half Subway” (referencing the iconic location in Zion National Park — though this is not near there) with a tube-like formation cut into the rock on one side of the narrow canyon as the creek is forced to bend around massive rocks. Near the end of this curve is a section of smooth red rock that must have a spring above, since water seems to drip down it continuously.

All of these factors created a very unusual and striking little vignette in this spot. The tan leaves are dry, and lighter than the underlying rock. The rock is actually within the typical range of red canyon rock, though perhaps tending a bit toward burgundy coloration. But the colors a skewed by several other factors. Being at the bottom of a deep canyon, the light here has taken on the warm red quality from reflecting off of the canyon walls. Mixed in with that red is some blue reflected from the band of open blue sky straight above. A close look reveals some sharper reflections from brightly lit areas high on the canyon walls.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Calero Oaks and Summer Grass

August 28, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Oak and grass-covered summer hills extending into late summer morning haze

This is a portrait orientation version of more of less the same scene I shared in an earlier photograph from the same mid-August morning hike through a familiar, long time favorite local hiking and photography location. It is an area full of grasslands and oak-covered hills, lush and green for a few months each winter and spring, and then California gold/brown for much of the rest of the year. I have hiked these hills and this specific trail for many years, though it had been several months since my last prior visit — it was good to be “home” again!

This morning was special for a few reasons. There was a wonderful feeling of returning to “my world” following a few months away from this place and my return, only days earlier, from a lengthy trip to the east coast that included more than a week in the very urban environment of New York City. It also turned out, a bit to my surprise, that this hike would bring my annual “autumn is just around the corner” experience — that day each year when something tells me clearly that summer is beginning to wind down and that the beauties of autumn are not far away.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: oak

Oak Leaves, Reflections, Spring

Tree and Morning Frost

Autumn Oak Leaves, Utah

Calero Oaks and Summer Grass

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