Tag Archives: oak

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

Merced River, Forest, Autumn

November 13, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Colorful autumn trees among burned forest and reflected in the water of the Merced River, Yosemite Valley

This is, in several ways, a “quieter” photograph than some that I have posted recently. The location is along a section of the Merced River in Yosemite Valley that is probably not really seen by more than a handful of people, if that, on any given day.The spot is not special enough, if specialness is definable, to warrant its own particular name. (However, a few people do have a name for it – but it isn’t really to be shared here.) So the scene itself was, objectively speaking, quiet – the only others around were a couple of photographer friends working individually nearby, there was no wind, the river was as calm and quiet as I recall seeing it – barely even flowing, and almost nothing was moving in the forests along its banks.

There was another kind of quiet, too – the mental quiet that I often look for while photographing, especially in places like this. It is easy to let my mind wander – is this the right place to stop? should I check email before leaving the car? is there anything here that will make a great photograph? might it be easier to shoot someplace more predictably beautiful? what if I can’t find anything to shoot? Leaving my car behind and shouldering my tripod and bag of gear, I walked down to the river bank and began looking. My notions about what I might photograph are not so important – being open to what I might find to photograph is. When you first begin to photograph, it can sometimes take a long time to get into the frame of mind that allows you to slow down and become engrossed by what you see, to the point that you lose track of time and even where you are, focusing entirely on the seeing and the photographing. Eventually, I think you can learn to let this happen more quickly – not that it always does – and to avoid the trap of trying too hard to steer the process and to instead be quiet and open to what you see. And so, thinking back on this evening, as I made my last photographs before heading home, I recall the sense of quiet focus as much as the objective features of the scene itself.

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

Black Oak, Meadow, Autumn

November 8, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A backlit black oak tree with autumn foliage stands in a meadow below Sentinel Rocks, Yosemite Valley

This black oak, like so many in Yosemite Valley, stands in a large grassy meadow. Although the autumn foliage of these trees may seem less spectacularly colorful than that of the big leaf maples and the cottonwoods, the black oak has a more subtle beauty in the fall. But when lit from behind, early or late in the day when the sun is low, the color of black oak leaves can be surprisingly intense. Off all the fall colors in the Valley, in some ways the combination of that of these oaks and the grasses of the meadows where they are found seems to most strongly speak of fall to me.

This single tree is in a meadow filled with black oaks. I would not be surprised to find that there are 100 of them here. On this afternoon I had gone to the meadow to photograph something different, a group of small cottonwood trees growing near the bank of the Merced River. Finishing that project, I was about to start back toward my car when I noticed that a short-lived beam of direct sun was coming down from an opening in the upper cliff walls and spotlighting this tree. Naturally, I changed my plans, took a little detour, and spent a few minutes with this tree.

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

Dusk, Earth-Shadow, Oaks and Grass

August 29, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The earth’s dusk earth shadow rises behind the folds of an oak and grass-covered Sierra Nevada foothill ridge on a late-summer evening

We had been in Mariposa, along the road heading towards Yosemite Valley, to meet up with friends and do various other fun things. As is often the case, at one point the conversation turned toward the photographic possibilities for later in the day. As the horrendous “Rim” fire was burning a few ridges over along the boundaries of the park, one thought was to find a high viewpoint and try to photograph the huge smoke clouds and the light from the flames during the dusk hours. A suggestion was offered by a person who knows the area concerning a gravel back-road to the top of an area ridge from which a good view might be obtained, so we decided to give that a try. It was a beautiful early evening – no smoke here – as we drove through oak and grass-covered hills below Mariposa to pick up this route and then ascended toward the ridge to turn off on the gravel road. From the junction we could see columns of smoke from burning forest to our north, but there was also a pretty clear “No Trespassing” sign posted along the road… so we decided that we should double-check our directions before risking a citation, and we headed back down the mountain.

The alternative plan had been to simply photograph the beautiful foothills themselves as the day came to an end. In this area there are many beautiful valleys of rolling hills covered with dry grassland and oak forests that sometimes thin to individual trees. We headed along a little back road and soon arrived at our main route shortly before the last sunlight was about to fade. Driving as we looked, we finally stopped at a turnout right after the sun had dropped below the horizon, where we could see the boundary between the last pink color in the sky and the rising blue line of the earth’s shadow. I used a long lens to make a small number of exposures shooting across the hillside patterns towards an oak-topped ridge with the dusk sky beyond.

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

Spring, Oaks, El Capitan Meadow

July 25, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Green grass and new oak leaves, El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite Valley

Probably almost anyone who has photographed in Yosemite Valley much can recognize this sort of scene and perhaps even think of some favorite spots to find black oak trees with new spring growth, set in meadows and backed by forest. Even though this is a very dry year in The Valley – and in almost all of California – around the beginning of May the annual “greening” of the Valley did take place, and this photograph was made during that period.

When lit from behind and above, the light coming through the new oak leaves is luminous and the colors can take on an intensity that sometimes cause me to describe this as the “impossibly green season” in California. Perhaps it is because the state is brown, tan, or gray during so much of the year that the spring green seems so intense.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: oak

Merced River, Forest, Autumn

Black Oak, Meadow, Autumn

Dusk, Earth-Shadow, Oaks and Grass

Spring, Oaks, El Capitan Meadow

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