Tag Archives: pine

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Trees, Early Season Snow

October 27, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Eastern Sierra Nevada trees and the aftermath of an early season dusting of snow

Since it had snowed during our drive to the eastern Sierra the previous day, we knew that we would have some opportunities to photograph snow on this morning up in Bishop Creek. We began the day along the eastern escarpment of the range in the high desert, where we photographed the first dawn light on the snow-coated peaks of the crest. Once this light show ended, we packed up and headed up into the canyon to look for aspen color. For this particular date in October it seemed like the color had reached lower elevations than would usually be the case, and before long we encountered large stands of trees in full autumn color.

We stopped to photograph one of the first groups of aspens, and after making a few photographs of the colorful trees I began to look at the snow covering the steep banks of the nearby Bishop Creek. I can photograph aspens every fall, but I don’t always see new snow when I visit in early October! The first morning sun was just about to strike these trees as the sun topped the high ridge above us, and the scene seemed distinctly winter-like to me.

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

Aspens and Pines

October 15, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A few pine trees stand among the autumn aspens near Conway Summit in the eastern Sierra Nevada

I made this photograph in the vicinity of a well-known and easily accessible aspen color “hot spot” in the eastern Sierra, at Conway Summit along highway 395 north of Lee Vining. Here is one of the largest and most easily accessible areas of aspen color in the eastern Sierra, since it is in a large open area with grand vistas up aspen covered slopes and because these slopes rise from an open section of the highway. At the right point in time (almost) every season, trees in every stage of color may be seen, ranging from green through yellow, orange, and red to bare trees that have lost all of their leaves.

This season I was in the eastern Sierra for five days, ranging between Carson Pass in the north and as far south as the Bishop Creek drainage. Several times during this period I managed to end up at or near Conway Summit. The first visit was on the trip over to Bishop, when we drove 395 down from Carson and Monitor Passes in the middle of an early season snow storm. Arriving at the summit that day, I photographed this area in falling snow that almost obscured the trees. Only two days later I was there again in the afternoon, when the backlight coming across the Sierra crest can cause the autumn aspen leaves to glow with great intensity. For this photograph I found a spot where the nearer trees were largely bare except for a few trees still holding a few golden leaves.

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

Dana Meadow, Kuna Crest

October 5, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dry summer grasses in Dana Meadow near Tioga Pass, forest leading to Kuna Crest

I think of this photograph as being, in some ways, very unremarkable. In a few other ways there are some things that are at least a bit unusual about it, though this probably isn’t obvious. The scene is one that is familiar to anyone who has driven over Tioga Pass between the eastern Sierra and Yosemite National Park and west side destinations. The Yosemite Sierra along this route is a very diverse place, but the large sub-alpine meadows surrounded by forest and higher peaks is very common and characteristic of the area. Sierra visitors are also probably familiar with the annual seasonal transition from lush, green meadows to drier, brown meadows.

So what is a bit unusual about this scene? For one thing, I shot it during more or less the midday hours. This is not typically when I photograph scenes like this one, but this daytime view is probably the sort of thing that we see most often when we are actually there in the range. The color of the meadow grass is also a bit unusual – not that this coloration occurs, but that it happened so early in the season this year. The almost complete absence of green in the meadow is more characteristic of a time several weeks later than this early August date, when typically we might see a combination of dry and lush. But this year has been anything but a typical one in the Sierra and in much of California. Last winter was extremely dry, and there was barely any precipitation after the new year started – and this was the second drought year in a row. The conditions in the Sierra, as seen here, are not unprecedented, but they are very unusual.

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

Dome and Meadow Trees

September 21, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Beams of sunset light, shining through breaks in clouds, momentarily illuminate Tuolumne Meadows trees and the granite slopes of Lembert Dome

This is a sort of companion photograph to one I posted earlier that was taken at about the same time, but more tightly composed and focusing on just the shoulder of Lembert Dome and the slopes of Mount Dana beyond. This was one of those Sierra evenings that started out with very mediocre light, but which also held the potential for something special to happen if things were to play out just the right way. Due to a wildfire over the crest near Mammoth Lakes, the sky was quite hazy. A high layer of clouds added to the gloom. I had spent the early evening trying to find some way to photograph these conditions, but was coming up short.

Not too long before I made this photograph, I had seen the gray murk suddenly lit by the warm glow of light coming underneath the edge of the high clouds far to the west as the sun dropped toward the horizon. This is not an uncommon event when the conditions line up correctly in the high Sierra, but this time it was a bit different due to the haze. The light, which might otherwise have been so colorful and bright as to almost be beyond belief, was instead muted and softened, though no less warm. A few minutes before I shot this image, the scene had been quite different – the sun had been behind those high clouds. But as I watched this it looked to me like the sun might find its way through a gap in the clouds, so I was ready to swing my camera to the east and capture Lembert Dome and other features in this light. Here that warm evening light glances across the face of the dome and softly lights some trees at the edge of the forest around Tuolumne Meadows.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: pine

Trees, Early Season Snow

Aspens and Pines

Dana Meadow, Kuna Crest

Dome and Meadow Trees

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