Tag Archives: park

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

Red Rock and Autumn Color

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Red Rock and Autumn Color
Early autumn color at the base of Zion Naitonal Park cliffs.

Red Rock and Autumn Color. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early autumn color at the base of Zion Naitonal Park cliffs.

Back in Autumn of 2012 I had an unusual opportunity to spend a total of roughly a month photographing in the red rock country of Southern Utah. I was there early in the month for a couple weeks, and I returned in near the end of the month with photographer friends. On that second visit we concentrated on Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and on Capitol Reef and Zion National Park. We visited Zion twice — as we entered the state and again as our trip concluded and we started back to California.

From my autumn visits to this part of Utah I started to learned a few things about how fall color evolves there, though my knowledge is far from complete. The first thing I learned is that the aspens change color earlier than in California — more like late September than early October. (I learned this the hard way, by showing up a bit too late to photograph peak aspen color.) The color in the red rock canyons seems to come later, and we had plenty of it to photograph in the second half of the month. When we arrived in Zion National Park at the end of the month interesting color was showing up at higher elevations, but I think we were catching only the very beginning of the color in Zion Canyon. That’s where I made this photograph, with an early riot of color at the base of the ubiquitous red rock cliffs.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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

Oak and Granite, Autumn

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Oak and Granite, Autumn
A small oak tree in deep shade at the base of a Yosemite Valley granite cliff.

Oak and Granite, Autumn. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A small oak tree in deep shade at the base of a Yosemite Valley granite cliff.

Back in 2012 I took a somewhat later-than-usual trip to photograph fall color in Yosemite Valley. When I think of Sierra Nevada fall color the high country aspens, mostly but not exclusively on the east side of the range, come to mind. Those colors tend to be an early October thing. But colors appear a bit later on the west side of the range, eventually working their way down to the foothills and finally the Central Valley. In Yosemite Valley beautiful colors come from cottonwood, black oak, dogwood and a few other sources, typically arriving in late October and peaking around Halloween.

For reasons that I can no longer recall, this time I ended up in the Valley a couple of weeks later. There was still sufficient color, and it came with the added bonus that light snow had recently fallen. (Unlike summer and winter, which tend to be just what you would expect, the transitional fall and spring seasons often bring surprises.) I took a walk along a section of the north wall of the Valley and photographed this small tree in the shadows at the base of a very tall granite cliff.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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

Autumn Reflections, Merced River

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Autumn Reflections, Merced River
“Autumn Reflections, Merced River” — Colors and shapes of autumn branches and leaves reflected in the surface of the Merced River, Yosemite Valley.

Some years back, as is my annual tradition, I was in Yosemite Valley in autumn to photograph fall color and other aspects of the seasonal change. To be honest, I mostly avoid the Valley during the summer time. It is a spectacular place any time of year, but I’ll happily avoid the oppressive crowds and overly-hot weather and visit during the other three seasons.

I distinctly recall the circumstances of this photograph. It was morning, and there had been some light early snow. The sun was coming out in the morning, the temperature warmed, and the melting snow was dropping from every tree. As I walked across a bridge on my way to a different subject I happened to look down and see the patterns created as the droplets fell into the Merced River, creating expanding and overlapping rings. I was entranced. I stopped and set up, forgetting about my original goal, and focused on this subject instead.

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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


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

Autumn, Red Rock Country

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Autumn, Red Rock Country
Autumn colors appear in red rock country, Capitol Reef National Park.

Autumn, Red Rock Country. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Autumn colors appear in red rock country, Capitol Reef National Park.

As best as I can recall — it was eight years ago! — I must have stopped alongside the road through Capitol Reef National Park to make this photograph, probably not far from the Fruita park facilities and campground. The photograph is looking more or less north along the front of the tall red rock formations that face to the west here.

This is a different view of this landscape than that presented in my recent photographs from the deep within the canyons. This is more about the grand, open landscape of this area, with long lines of stratified red-rock formations, great expanses of broad valleys, trees and brush, streams and rivers, and immense sky.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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