Tag Archives: park

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

Autumn Cottonwood Trees, Meadow, Fog

November 11, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning fog drifts through a stand of cottonwood trees with golden autumn leaves, Yosemite Valley

Like essentially everyone who has photographed much in Yosemite Valley, I know this little stand of cottonwood trees very well. It is an obvious attractive photographic subject since its densely grouped trees stand apart from other trees in the middle of a meadow, its “perfect cottonwood-ness” is broken by the presence of a couple of other trees almost hidden within the stand, there are a variety of potential backgrounds for the small grove, at the right times it can be beautifully lit, and the meadow often forms beautiful ground fog early in the morning during certain seasons and conditions. Since the fall color of the trees seemed near its peak, I made a plan to be out there at one of the potentially ideal times on Halloween morning.

On the prior day I had decided on the spot from which I would photograph, with the idea being to make a fairly tightly cropped photograph of the trees with a bit of canyon wall in the background. With this plan in mind, I woke up in the darkness and arrived here well before sunrise and went directly to the spot I had picked out. I was very happy to find ground fog drifting over the meadow and frost on its dried grasses. I started photographing almost right away, before there was any direct light here or anywhere else in the Valley, and I planned to shoot right through sunrise and the point when the first direct light strikes the meadow and this group of trees. Before long, the first bit of sunlight came to the upper edge of the trees, and the light changed quickly as the beam of light from up near Half Dome moved down across the trees and began to cast alternating light and shadow across the meadow. This image from the series of photographs seems like the best combination of fog (which began to dissipate as the sun arrived), sunlight on trees and meadow, and background still in shade.

Photographs: Ghost Towns

Recent Photographs from Bodie

November 9, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Almost a month ago we spent a few hours in the historic ghost town of Bodie, California on the final day of a trip to the eastern Sierra to photograph fall colors. On this day we decided to focus on a few other things, including a looping drive out to the east of the Sierra, followed by a side trip to Bodie, which came up when it looked like the weather conditions out there might be somewhat more interesting than usual.

Rather than save these up for a week’s worth of individual post, I have decided to combine them into a single post. (I have too many photographs queued up for future posts already.) I am presenting them in roughly the order that I shot them as we wandered around in Bodie. For those who may be unfamiliar with Bodie, it was the site of silver and gold mining many decades ago. There are stories of it being a fairly populous place with many “modern” amenities – but also of it being a rather rough place, which isn’t surprising given its remote location and the fact that it was a mining town. The mines gave out and the citizens gradually moved away, leaving the town almost completely abandoned. A few decades ago it was taken over by the California State Park System and it is now a state historical park that focuses on protecting and maintaining the place and making it available to visitors.

Weathered wooden walls and windows, Bodie, California

I passed this building or group of buildings on my way into the town. I have photographed this structure and, in fact, this section of the structure before. Exposed to the harsh summer and winter conditions of this high desert location, it is no surprise that the wood has been severely weathered.

The Standard Mill in the ghost town of Bodie, California

The Standard Mill is a large facility for refining ore, located across the town from the place where most of us begin our walks. To my eyes, it reminds me a lot of certain other mid-century industrial sites where I have photographed. Unfortunately – for me, but perhaps fortunately for other reason – fences surround the site and it is not possible to easily get inside and wander about without a guide. For that reason all of my photographs of the mill are from some distance.

The corrugated metal exterior of the abandoned Standard Mill, Bodie, California

This is a closer photograph of the buildings of the Standard Mill, whose angles, structure, and supporting wires fascinated me.

Bodie - Buildings Near Standard Mill — Bodie – Buildings Near Standard Mill

Old abandoned buildings line the streets of the ghost town of Bodie, California

These are among a number of buildings along the street heading to the entrance to the Standard Mill. The view here looks back across the valley in which the ghost town is located, toward higher hills, a small aspen grove, and cloud-shrouded peaks.

Windows on the front of an abandoned wooden building in the ghost town of Bodie reflect the cloud-filled sky

The squared geometry of the front of this building first caught my, along with the typical weathered condition of the wooden door, window frames, and paneling. The window reflects a distorted and blurred version of the cloud-filled sky, and underneath are hints of what is inside the windows.

The schoolhouse in the ghost town of Bodie, California

This is the view I first had of the schoolhouse, before I realized that it was, in fact, the school. The tall steeple first had me thinking it was perhaps a church. From this side, the building is backed by nothing but the open space of the high desert, highlighting the desolation of the place.

Downtown Bodie ghost town, with barren hills rising beyond

The foreground structure is the same schoolhouse building seen in the previous photograph. Here the perspective looks over the back of the school and across the buildings of the main street leading toward the mill, which is behind my camera position.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Fallen Snag, Dry Tarn

November 9, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

This year was the second of two very dry years in the Sierra Nevada and much of the west. The snowfall this past winter (2012-13) was far below normal and set records in some places. Last October and November it seemed like we might be starting a very wet season, which would have been welcome after the previous winter’s low levels of precipitation, but then the tap was shut off near the end of the year and there was hardly any more precipitation at all during the rest of the season, the portion when the majority of the Sierra’s precipitation falls. Consequently, this has been a strange summer in the Sierra. Although there may have been more monsoonal rain the usual, the effects of the depleted snow pack are obvious. The spring run-off occurred early and was anemic. By July much of the Sierra looked more like August, and I was already seeing signs of fall by early August.

With all of this in mind, it was no surprise to use to find some unusually dry conditions in the Kings Canyon back-country when we visited for more than a week in mid-September. (Though, in some ways, things were less horrendous than I might have expected. Perhaps this was a combination of going at a time when things tend to be dry anyway and, as a local pointed out to me, some recent summer rains.) On our first day at the location where we stayed to photograph for nearly a week I wandered up some nearby meadows towards a lake that I though I might want to photograph. Very close to my campsite I found several completely dry tarns. (A “tarn” is a seasonal pond fed by snowmelt, and many of them dry up each season.) This very old, sun bleached snag lay across the exposed rocks of this one, creating a stark images.

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” from Heyday Books, is available directly from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: park

Merced River, Forest, Autumn

Autumn Cottonwood Trees, Meadow, Fog

Recent Photographs from Bodie

Fallen Snag, Dry Tarn

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