Tag Archives: peaks

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

Owens Valley Trees, Sierra Nevada, Evening

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Owens Valley Trees, Sierra Nevada, Evening
The last light of an autumn day falls across a group of trees in Owens Valley with the Sierra Nevada in the background.

Owens Valley Trees, Sierra Nevada, Evening. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The last light of an autumn day falls across a group of trees in Owens Valley with the Sierra Nevada in the background.

Landscape photography often feels a bit like hunting to me. I may go to a particular location with a general sense that something worthwhile is likely to happen there — and that sense is often based on some combination of long-developed intuition and knowledge of the antecedent conditions and the current situation. But I often do not have a specific subject or composition in mind. (Sometimes I do, but that is less likely.) In other words, I believe that there is a good chance that I’ll find the sort of thing that appeals to me photographically… so I go to a place at a time because I think the odds are good I’ll find something interesting.

One result is that I have to be ready to discover, change plans, improvise, and respond quickly to whatever I discover. (It also means that there are occasional dead-ends, but I digress…) We went to this spot with something entirely different in mind, but within minutes of arriving I decided that the “something else” was not going to work… and I saw that the line of sunlight coming across Owens Valley was striking this group of trees and that I only had a moment or two to photograph before the light left them. I made an initial exposure in landscape mode, then switched to portrait mode when I noticed more light on the foreground than the background. In the end, I came away with two rather different photographs of these trees — in the landscape version they lie near the bottom of the frame with only more distance subjects above them, while here they are situated beyond the stretch of foreground plants and the distant peaks occupy less of the frame.

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.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Below Humphreys, Autumn Snow

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Below Humphreys, Autumn Snow
Autumn snow dusts the eastern Sierra Nevada escarpment below Mount Humphreys in morning light.

Below Humphreys, Autumn Snow. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Autumn snow dusts the eastern Sierra Nevada escarpment below Mount Humphreys in morning light.

The Sierra Nevada eastern escarpment meets the valleys that run roughly north/south on that side of the range in a variety of ways. In a few places the junction between high desert and Sierra is abrupt. I recall hiking out over one particularly difficult Eastern Sierra pass some years ago, spending the better part of two days walking from a spot just west of the crest to the trailhead, and being able to identify exactly where the rocky range ended. In other places the transition is more complicated or more gradual. In the area where I made this photograph, a huge mass of what must be alluvial and glacial remnants rises gradually for thousands of feet before finally arriving at the base of Sierra peaks.

We drove up here early in the morning, taking a variety of rough gravel roads just about as far as we could reasonably go before stopping to make photographs. Our immediate visual target was a couple of small, isolated aspen groves set in this sagebrush country, but it is hard — OK, impossible — to ignore the massive peaks just over your shoulder!The last of the relatively gentle rise ends in the shadow at the bottom of the frame. From there the slopes quickly steepen and soon rise to rugged and Rocky Mountains which culminate here in some of the highest peaks of the Sierra crest.

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.

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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

Aspen Groves, Peaks, and Clouds

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Aspen Groves, Peaks, and Clouds
Clouds move in above Eastern Sierra peaks and autumn aspen groves.

Aspen Groves, Peaks, and Clouds. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Clouds move in above Eastern Sierra peaks and autumn aspen groves.

The fall color was the objective of my recent visit to the Eastern Sierra Nevada — and I did find it — but the weather and related conditions were perhaps the bigger story. Every fall we start to watch the forecasts, hoping to see the first early Pacific weather fronts arrive. They signal the advent of winter conditions, can bring rain and snow, and can sometimes last a day or more. In most years they begin in October, though the really big storms are still a ways in the future. During my visit early in the month, several weak fronts arrived and affected the weather. It turned cold, clouds lingered over the crest, and a small amount of rain and snow fell.

I made this photograph in a valley along the eastern front of the Sierra, where the sagebrush country rises toward higher peaks, and aspens and eventually conifers begin to predominate. Mixed sun and clouds moved varying light across this landscape, and clouds were settling in over the more distant peaks of the high country.

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

Conifers and Autumn Aspens, Snow-Dusted Peaks

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Conifers and Autumn Aspens, Snow-Dusted Peaks
An early season dusting of snow above colorful aspen groves surrounding conifers.

Conifers and Autumn Aspens, Snow-Dusted Peaks. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An early season dusting of snow above colorful aspen groves surrounding conifers.

Some of you may be starting to feel a sense of loss as summer comes to an end, a nostalgia for those slow days of the warm season. I, on the other hand, am happy to see summer go. My two favorite seasons are coming! I love autumn with its sense of continuous change and the remarkable shows of fall color. And while winter may not be the most comfortable season, in many ways it is the most interesting, a time when we are reminded that sometimes the climate is a challenge.

This photograph comes from a few years back on a day that features one of my favorite sorts of early autumn days in the Eastern Sierra. This would be a day when the aspens are changing color and when an early winter-like weather front passes through and drops a dusting of snow on the highest peaks. (My other favorite type of Sierra autumn day is entirely different — the kind of sunny day when the sun retains some warmth, the light is soft, the colors are golden, and the backcountry is nearly deserted.) This photograph looks across a large grove of (mostly) aspen trees that leads up the eastern slopes toward high peaks with some of the newly fallen snow.

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 | 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.