Tag Archives: peak

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Conway Summit Aspens, Autumn

October 14, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Layers of colorful autumn aspen groves lead up toward Dunderberg Meadow and Peak above Conway Summit, California.

I often plan my visits to this large aspen grove on the high point of highway 395 just north of Lee Vining for late afternoon, when the rows upon rows of large aspen groves are back-lit by the afternoon sun as it drops towards the crest of the Sierra Nevada near Dunderberg peak. Each grove tends to change color at a slightly different time, and each can take on a different shade ranging from green (in the case of those that change a bit later) to golden and red and orange. This year, in this area, the colors seem to tend more towards gold/yellow and less towards red/orange, but no matte what the shade they light up in this light.

I was extra lucky on this afternoon in that there were clouds. Talk to many Sierra photographers about the weather and you’ll discover that we are not so fond of the “perfect blue sky weather” that so many others love. Yes, it is “pleasant.” No, it is not necessarily visually interesting. It had been that sort of “perfect” weather for the first couple days of this visit to the “east side,” but in the middle of the afternoon on this day puffy clouds began to form over the crest, and their shadows added texture and brought out the shapes of hills and ridges beyond the aspens.

This photograph is 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: Sierra Nevada

Fall Color, Eastern Sierra Aspens

October 11, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 10 Comments

On a week of brilliant fall color during an autumn when the color was exceptional in parts of the eastern Sierra, this little grove of aspens was almost absurdly colorful. I first saw them while driving away from a nearby shot – their fluorescent colors got my attention while I was looking in a completely different direction. The colors nearby were quite something, but they literally paled next to this grove. (I’ve heard trees like this referred to as Cheetos trees – and I think you can imagine why.)

Should you think that this color is simply something I’ve pumped up in post processing, take a look at the boulder in the lower part of the frame and see the tree trunks and the pale grasses at bottom right. The fact that I shot in over cast conditions, late in the day, and in a very light rain did intensify the colors a bit, but this is what they looked like.

These colors present some photographic challenges. The main one is that almost all of the light is in the red channel, and when shooting a digital camera it is easy to blow out (grossly overexpose) the red channel and not even realize it. I have found that with this subject it is critical to use the three-channel histogram display that shows the separate levels of red, green, and blue. The single luminosity histogram display averages the values of the three color channels, and if one is extremely hot (as is the red channel here) you can blow it out even if the histogram looks fine.

This photograph is 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: Sierra Nevada

Fall Aspen Leaves, Sierra Nevada

October 8, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Aspen leaves at their peak of red, orange, and gold color in the North Lake area of the Sierra Nevada, California.

More wild aspen colors… On this morning I went to the infamous North Lake – infamous for the ridiculous crowds of photographers who flock to the lower end of the lake to make the same photograph of the surface of the lake, the colorful trees at the far end, a band of aspens ascending a hillside, and the taller peaks beyond. A year or two I had my first encounter with the throng when I arrived at this lake, not knowing about this business, and found perhaps 20 photographers in a row near the outlet stream. This year I knew what was coming when I arrived at the lake, but I was still somewhat shocked to see that the horde was now up to perhaps 60 or more photographers packed tripod to tripod along the banks of the lake at the outlet, and now also extending along the far side of the lake as well.

Fortunately, I had no intention of shooting that scene. Instead, my plan was to park my car, pack up my gear, and walk slowly along the road past the lake looking for intimate photographs of small details of the autumn scene, especially where some smaller aspen trees grow right up agains a short, rocky cliff. So I spent perhaps an hour wandering along here, mostly by myself but with an occasional friendly encounter with other horde-avoiding photographers, until I reached a small parking area further up the lake by the other iconic subject at North Lake, the “tree tunnel.” I also did not plan to photograph this, but I did figure that I could find some very colorful leaves near here in the forest along the side of the road, and that is where I photographed this very colorful grouping of aspen leaves.

This photograph is 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: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Ragged Peak and Lower Young Lake

Image September 22, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

The summit ridge of Ragged Peak is reflected in the still morning surface of Lower Young Lake, Yosemite National Park, California.

On the final morning of my mid-August backpacking/photography trip to the Young Lakes area I awoke to some overcast to the east. Photographically speaking, this was a mostly good thing. As the morning light builds, it can otherwise become harsh, but when just the right thickness of clouds is overhead the light can be diffused a bit and the shadows are lit and the bright granite surface reflections are a bit subdued. In addition to having a bit of thin cloudiness overhead, there was virtually no wind, so the surface of the lake remained glass-like longer on this morning, and showed a clear reflection of Ragged Peak, the dominant feature on this end of the ridge that runs alongside these lakes.

The saddle to the left of Ragged Peak reminds me of a previous late-season to this lake. I thought I was the only person there – it must have been very late September or perhaps even the beginning of October – but in the morning someone showed up as I was sitting by the lake shore. It turned out that he was a “seasonal” – a back-country ranger during the summer months who did something else the rest of the year. We had a long conversation about a variety of things, including his musings about whether it was perhaps time to apply for a “real” job with the park service. Near the end of our conversation he mentioned that he had been over this saddle, so of course I had to try it. I won’t say much more about it, except to point out that it does not really have a trail and it ascends a very steep slope filled with very large boulders before topping the rough edge of an old moraine – in other words, it isn’t quite like taking the trail to Glen Aulin.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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