Tag Archives: peak

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Aspens, Eastern Sierra Lake

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Autumn Aspens, Eastern Sierra Lake
Faint wildfire smoke and fall aspen color around an Eastern Sierra Nevada lake.

Autumn Aspens, Eastern Sierra Lake. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Faint wildfire smoke and fall aspen color around an Eastern Sierra Nevada lake.

Along the same lines as another photograph I recently wrote about, this one is an alternate framing of a scene that I previously shared in a landscape mode photograph. (For folks unfamiliar with this terminology, “portrait” mode is taller than it is wide and “landscape” mode is wider than it is tall.) When I wrote about the decision to create two versions of such a scene I proposed two reasons for doing so. First, I cannot always say with certainty which formatting is better. Second, clients (especially in the publishing world) are often quite specific about which they need, so it makes sense to have both if possible.

There is another practical factor at work in this case, too. Before I went to this spot I had a fairly specific idea of the camera position I wanted to use and of how I wanted to incorporate the red foreground trees with the lake, the more distant colorful aspens, and the higher mountains. So I got their very early — early enough that I took a headlamp when I walked to this spot — and prepared to work from more or less the same spot as the light evolved. And it evolved a lot on this morning. Before sunrise there was abundant wildfire smoke floating around and the scene was quite muted and not what I hoped for. Initially I had decided to let the distant part of the scene go and instead focus on the closer portions less affected by the smoke, but as the sun came up it cut through some of the haze. All of this meant that as I worked from this fixed location, waiting for the right light to evolve, and I had plenty of time to try different camera orientations and other small modifications of the composition and framing.

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: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Branch and Leaves

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Aspen Branch and Leaves
An aspen branch bearing leaves at the peak of autumn color, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Aspen Branch and Leaves. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An aspen branch bearing leaves at the peak of autumn color, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

This is another photograph made during a brief “up close and personal” ramble through an aspen grove that was absolutely full of the widest range of aspen color I have seen — the full gamut of green, yellow, gold, orange, red, and even a few tan or brown leaves.

I enjoy taking a break from typical landscape photography, which tends to focus on the large view and on producing an image of the scene that evokes its reality to some extent, and working these tiny “intimate landscapes” with their immense range of variables. The scene may contain as little as a single leaf and rarely includes more than four or five, and the juxtaposition of the leaves within the group and against the background provides lots of room for experimentation. Here I used a macro lens with a large aperture so that I could could separate the relatively crisp foreground leaves from the amorphous and blurred background.

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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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.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Lake, Dawn, Eastern Sierra

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Autumn Lake, Dawn, Eastern Sierra
Dawn light comes to an Eastern Sierra Nevada lake surrounded by autumn aspen trees and reflecting distant peaks.

Autumn Lake, Dawn, Eastern Sierra. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dawn light comes to an Eastern Sierra Nevada lake surrounded by autumn aspen trees and reflecting distant peaks.

Yes, this is a bit of an iconic spot, but with good reason. And this year the colors around this Eastern Sierra Nevada lake were exceptional. I first photographed here before it became the often over-busy place it is today, so I’ve seen the color transition here many times. It has been about a decade since I saw colors like what I found this year. The most striking thing this year was the abundance of red and orange colors, something we don’t see every time.

The circumstances of this photograph were a bit complex. I was camped nearby the night before, and at sunset a thick cloud of suffocating wildfire smoke descended from the Sierra crest. I almost packed up and left, but then I decided to at least stick around for the night and see what the morning might bring. It was still smoky in the morning though not quite as bad as the previous night. Figuring that the smoke would be even worse farther to the north, I decided to head to this nearby lake. The smoke muted the light quite a bit, but because the smoke is not consistently thick there were moments when it thinned and more directional light appeared. I decided to simply set up in one spot and patiently wait for those momentary changes in illumination.

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.

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

Autumn Cottonwood, Canyon Walls

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Autumn Cottonwood, Canyon Walls
An old canyon cottonwood tree approaching peak fall color, Utah.

Autumn Cottonwood, Canyon Walls. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An old canyon cottonwood tree approaching peak fall color, Utah.

A small group of photographers spent a day exploring this out-of-the-way canyon far out in the Southern Utah backcountry. If a friend had not shared the location with us I probably never would have gone here, and I am deeply grateful that he introduced us to the place.

We began at a totally nondescript pull-out off of a long gravel road, a place where I would never have expected to find such a canyon. We began walking on the dry flatlands and soon dropped into a shallow canyon with some sandstone along the bottom. As per the common pattern, as we walked the side walls began to quickly rise above us, and before long we were deep in a beautiful and lonely canyon. My recollection is that we saw no one other than our party that day. This grizzled old cottonwood stood near the junction of our canyon and a side canyon seen in the upper background.

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.