Tag Archives: parkway

Conservation/Environment, Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: New England

Forest Colors, Autumn

Image Leave a comment
Forest Colors, Autumn
“Forest Colors, Autumn” — Wildly colorful autumn trees in New England.

As a long time California fall color photographer — hey, I wrote a book on that! — I noticed a few significant differences when we photographed New England fall color. For one thing, wildly varied colors often appear in close proximity, as in this photograph. Another big difference is that the colors seem to go on forever, draped across entire mountain ranges almost without break. (In California they tend to be more localized and uniform.) Another difference? There are far more people there to see the colors! I thought that it got crowded at popular California spots on fall weekends, but it is nothing like what we saw in New England!

This photograph comes from one of those popular areas, the Kancamagus Parkway. This two-lane road crosses one of the more spectacular fall color areas, and people flock to it in huge numbers. But there is so much color everywhere that you can stop at almost any point and find something to photograph, especially if you like making compositions out of complex forest scenes.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Instagram | Flickr | Facebook | Threads | Post | Email

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

Scroll down to share comments or questions. (Click post title first if viewing on the home page.)

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Clearing Storm, Lake, and Fog

Image Leave a comment
Clearing Storm, Lake, and Fog
“Clearing Storm, Lake, and Fog” — Evening fog drifts over moutains around a Sierra Nevada mountain lake as storm clouds clear.

I made this photograph on a rather remarkable Sierra evening. Late the previous day it had started to rain. Contrary to my expectations and experience, this turned out to not be just another afternoon shower — it absolutely poured, confining us to tents for hours and restricting our photography well into the next day. Finally the rain began to let up and we got out, though everything remained gray and wet. It wasn’t until the second evening, right around sunset, that the clouds finally broke enough to let in some light. But what light it was — perhaps a reward for our forbearance during the storm!

This photograph has been sitting in the archives for quite some time. I have looked at it in periodically and puzzled over how to handle it. The challenge was that the sky color was bright and extremely intense, so my exposure had to leave the foreground in deep shadow. This week I came back to the photo and figured out how to process it. Part of the challenge was technical, but it was also aesthetic — a question of how bright to make things and still retain the sense of oncoming twilight.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Instagram | Flickr | Facebook | Threads | Post | Email

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

Scroll down to share comments or questions. (Click post title first if viewing on the home page.)

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

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: New England

Dense Autumn Foliage

Image Leave a comment
Dense Autumn Foliage
“Dense Autumn Foliage” — Intensely colorful New England autumn foliage., New Hampshire.

My favorite season is just days away, with the autumnal equinox arriving this weekend. Although I have yet to see much of it myself, I know that the first fall foliage is starting to show up here in California — and I hope to be in the field photographing it again soon! Meanwhile I’ll start the ball rolling with some photographs from the East Coast. I’ve had these in my archive for some time and only got around to working them up this week. This one comes from New Hampshire.

Two years ago we (finally!) made it to New England for its famous fall color display. For years, almost every time I shared Sierra Nevada fall color photographs someone would say, “But you should see New England!” I love the Sierra version of autumn, which just as beautiful, if less flamboyant — but I have to admit that the amazing oceans of color on the East Coast are spectacular, too.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Instagram | Flickr | Facebook | Threads | Post | Email

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

Scroll down to share comments or questions. (Click post title first if viewing on the home page.)

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

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: New England

Peak New England Color

Image Leave a comment
Peak New England Color
A White Moutains forest of almost-exclusively hardwood trees at the peak of fall color.

Peak New England Color. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A White Moutains forest of almost-exclusively hardwood trees at the peak of fall color.

This photograph, if nothing else, illustrates some aspects of how New England fall color is different from what I usually photograph in California, particularly in the Sierra Nevada. Out here the colors tend to be relatively uniform, usually yellow to brown, broken by occasional examples of other colors. For example, the great majority of our aspens turn yellow/gold, which is why the occasional red and orange exceptions attract so much attention. And the Sierra trees are far less likely to appear in huge, mountain-covering stands — they more typically line the bottom of a valley, run upslope along a gully or other feature, and are surrounded by green conifers.

So what differences can we see here? First, the hardwoods vastly outnumber the sparse conifer trees. (I like the contrast the latter provide, however.) The hardwood forest stretches for great distances — that area of the photograph is quite large but it is only a small portion of the fall-colored trees I could see here. The tree color is also much more diverse, here including every shade from green through orange and red.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

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