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Commentary, Morning Musings, Photographers, Photographs: Photographers

Pick the Right Friends… (Morning Musings 9/29/14)

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G Dan Mitchell Photographing in the Sierra Nevada
G Dan Mitchell Photographing in the Sierra Nevada

If you are ever in the wilderness and you want someone to take a photograph of you, you could hand your smartphone to the nearest person and hope for the best. However, I have a few suggestions (slightly tongue-in-cheek) that might improve the odds:

  1. Arrange to be in the company of one of the best landscape photographers working today. (Yeah, that’s you, Charlie Cramer.)
  2. Make a photograph of him at work and hope that this inspires him to photograph you doing the same thing.
  3. Be sure to place yourself so that dramatic golden hour light hits you in partial profile.
  4. Be sure to position yourself against an appropriate background.
  5. Gaze attentively and thoughtfully into the distance. ;-)

Bonus hint: Be sure to level your tripod first, or your photographer friends may never let you live it down. ;-)

Here’s a photograph of Charlie at work, too

Photographer Charles Cramer
Photographer Charles Cramer

In all seriousness, when you are out shooting, do photograph your fellow photographers. Each of us needs photographs of ourselves, and a photograph by a friend (or of a friend) is a special thing.

Thanks, Charlie!

Morning Musings are somewhat irregular posts in which I write about whatever is on my mind at the moment.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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

Lake Shore, Autumn Bilberry

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Lake Shore, Autumn Bilberry
Lake Shore, Autumn Bilberry

Lake Shore, Autumn Bilberry. Yosemite National Park, California. September 5, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A harbinger of Sierra Nevada autumn, red bilberry plants carpet the shoreline of a sub-alpine lake

This photograph evokes, for me, that special feeling of the end of summer in the high country, when the awareness of the changing seasons is heightened and there is an odd combination of relaxation as the pace of mountain life slows and a feeling that the time of year when access to such places is easy is rapidly coming to an end — and that in a matter of weeks places like this one will be snow-covered and largely inaccessible for another year. It is also a time, perhaps for these very reasons, when the recognition of the natural cycles of seasons and lives becomes more acute.

The red carpet on the close ground along the shoreline consists of small bilberry plants. This small plant is normally easy to overlook. It stands perhaps an inch tall, often in clusters in clear areas along lakes and among trees. During the summer it is, frankly, just another little green thing among many. But in September it transforms into something that you cannot help noticing, especially if you look across a patch into the sun — backlit bilberry suddenly becomes flaming red. Beyond the near shore, trees scattered along a rocky peninsula and small islands catch the last warm and soft light of an “almost-autumn” evening.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Granite, Forest, and Lake

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Granite, Forest, and Lake
Granite, Forest, and Lake

Granite, Forest, and Lake. Yosemite National Park, California. September 4, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

View of rugged northern Yosemite terrain of forest, lakes, and peaks, as seen from the top of a glaciated granite ridge

I went exploring on this evening, checking out the spine of this glaciated granite ridge above the lake where we were camped. It was only a short walk, first along the forested shore of the lake, then up the gradual incline of smooth granite benches and over a few bits or broken terrain to the top. This wasn’t the highest point around, but it was high enough, and it was full of trees that would catch the evening light as the day came to an end.

This is quintessential high Sierra scenery. Underfoot is glaciated granite, topped with glacial erratic rocks and boulders left behind when glaciers retreated from this area thousands of years ago. The granite has weathered, and where sand and plant material collect in pockets and cracks plants have managed to take hold, ranging from small grasses to rugged trees. Below the granite ridge the soil is thicker and forest trees grow around a subalpine lake. The terrain drops off into the canyon of the Tuolumne River on the other side of the lake and in the distance are the high, alpine peaks of the Cathedral Range.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Late Season Shoreline

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Late Season Shoreline
“Late Season Shoreline” — Brilliant late-season red bilberry carpets shoreline meadows around a Sierra Nevada lake, Yosemite National Park

As I have written elsewhere on more than one occasion, every August I begin to pay attention to hints that summer will end and that autumn is on its way. Early in the high country summer everything is in a state of rapid change — plants are in a hurry to take advantage of a short growing season and the availability of runoff water, and that water itself flows everywhere. After the explosion of early season growth and the production of flowers and cones things slow down, and at some point in August a feeling of quiet and stability begins to take hold.

The hints of change that I look for range from almost immaterial — a feeling about the sound of wind or the angle of light — to quite objective. In the latter category are changes that occur in the cycles of plant life. Corn lily plants change from green to yellow and gold and then to brown, and topple over. A few yellow leaves begin to appear on willows and even the aspens. But one of the strongest signs for me is the appearance of the red bilberry leaves in clear areas in the forest and near the edges of lakes. While the autumn bilberry leaves do not appear to be all that colorful in regular light, when backlit they turn the ground a gaudy range of colors from yellow and gold to bright red.

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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

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.