Tag Archives: pine

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

Morning Light, Tioga Tarn

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Morning Light, Tioga Tarn - Morning light, shining over the shoulder of Mount Dana, strikes a shoreline meadow along one of the Tioga tarns, Yosemite National Park.
Morning light, shining over the shoulder of Mount Dana, strikes a shoreline meadow along one of the Tioga tarns, Yosemite National Park.

Morning Light, Tioga Tarn. Yosemite National Park, California. July 13 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light, shining over the shoulder of Mount Dana, strikes a shoreline meadow along one of the Tioga tarns, Yosemite National Park.

I’m pretty much completely unable to resist making photographs of trees back-lit by morning light, especially when they are in meadowy areas along the shorelines of sub-alpine or alpine lakes. The condition is even worse when the water reflects the backlit trees, and almost unbearable when the light also illuminates some of the shapes below the water’s surface. It is a personal weakness. I freely admit it! ;-)

I made this photograph early one morning, but not too early, in the general area of Tioga Pass. The high country on both sides of the pass contains quite a few small seasonal ponds filled by snow-melt water. Many are shallow and many, but not all, are partially to completely surrounded by meadow. Often small trees may grow in the meadow areas along the banks of the tarns, with the old explanation being that they are “gradually filling in the meadows,” though I’ve also heard that they find it harder to grow in these areas because of the higher water table. I made this photograph with a rather long lens. In some ways it might have been better to work closer to the trees and use a shorter lens, but here it was also a better idea to use the long lens to protect the area surrounding the tarn, an area that is perhaps just a bit too accessible to visitors and which needs a bit of additional care and protection. By the way, if you want to see green high country scenes like this one, you’ll have to go very soon this year! After a very dry winter, much of the water is already drying up in the high country and the meadows that would typically be at their height of green right about now are already turning brown quickly.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are 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: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Forest, Meadow, and Stream

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Forest, Meadow, and Stream - A mountain stream winds through a sub-alpine meadow and past lodgepole forest beneath a snow-covered peak in evening light, Yosemite National Park.
A mountain stream winds through a sub-alpine meadow and past lodgepole forest beneath a snow-covered peak in evening light, Yosemite National Park.

Forest, Meadow, and Stream. Yosemite National Park, California. July 28, 2011. © Copyright 201 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A mountain stream winds through a sub-alpine meadow and past lodgepole forest beneath a snow covered peak in evening light, Yosemite National Park.

I know this scene is in Yosemite National Park. I know that it is in the high country along Tioga Pass Road, most likely not too far from Tuolumne Meadows. I know that I made the photograph in the evening after photographing certain other specific subjects in this area. But, for the life of me, I cannot identify the exact location. The peak looks very familiar and I can’t imagine that I had not earlier seen this little bend in the river, but one year after I made the photograph… I’m coming up empty! :-)

Still, there are plenty of things that I do know about this scene. It was late July of the second of two very wet seasons in the Sierra, and the results are plainly visible here in several ways. Even though it was almost August, there is still plenty of snow on the ridge and peak, which must be in the 11,000+’ elevation range, given the alpine appearance of the talus fields. That is a lot of snow for late July! (This year it looked about like that six or eight weeks earlier.) And, not surprisingly given the amount of yet-to-melt snow, the little meadow is still lush and green with early summer growth. And, of course, the stream itself is flowing strongly. I suppose that the main subject of this photograph was and is the beautiful fringe of late-day light on the little grove of trees on the bank of the creek as it meanders through the meadow.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are 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: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Forest, Tarn, and Granite

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Forest, Tarn, and Granite - Sierra forest and granite reflected in the surface of a small tarn, Yosemite National Park.
Sierra forest and granite reflected in the surface of a small tarn, Yosemite National Park.

Forest, Tarn, and Granite. Yosemite National Park, California. July 28, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sierra forest and granite reflected in the surface of a small tarn, Yosemite National Park.

Having visited the Sierra and the Yosemite high country for more than a few decades, I have become attached to a number of small and unlikely little places that have personal meaning to me. This is one of those odd little spots. At a point along Tioga Pass Road there is a small unmarked turnout like many other such turnouts along this route. One time a few years ago I stopped here for reasons that I can no longer recall. I got out of the car and noticed a very faint path leading away from the road – so, of course, I took it! It led though tightly spaced trees and towards a small canyon, passing several small ponds along the way. I also recall mosquitos. Lots of mosquitos.

Since that time I have returned to this spot quite a few times – in snow on the day that the road first opens, on sunny summer days like this one, and on damp and foggy evenings in late fall not long before the highway closes for the season. Where is the spot, exactly? All I’ll say is that it is in Yosemite and that you can get to it by walking away from Tioga Pass Road. Frankly, I don’t think the specific location really matters to anyone but me and perhaps a few others who might stop here, too. There are thousands of such little spots throughout the Sierra, and it is your discovery of your own personal places among them that can make them special.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are 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: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Trees and Evening Sky

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Trees and Evening Sky - Trees silhouetted against cloud-filled evening sky, Yosemite National Park.
Trees silhouetted against cloud-filled evening sky, Yosemite National Park.

Trees and Evening Sky. Yosemite National Park, California. June 18, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trees silhouetted against cloud-filled evening sky, Yosemite National Park.

The last time I posted a photograph of more or less this scene, the colors were so bright that you almost needed sunglasses! The photograph was made on an evening that ultimately turned into one of the most astonishingly colorful ones I have experienced in the Sierra – and I have experienced a few! Although that evening began with what most might regard as extraordinarily unpromising light – murky haze and overcast – I had an idea that these might be just the conditions in which the sun drops below the edge of the clouds far to the west just before sunset and then lights the clouds from beneath, a situation that can suddenly turn the sky into a psychedelic kaleidoscope of colors.

Eventually that is just what happened. But this photograph was made just before that show began, or perhaps during the very first stages of it when it was not at all certain what might develop. There were high, thin clouds in the sky to the west, and they began to glow a bit with evening backlight, so I lined up this little group of trees on the granite slabs and photographed them in silhouette against the sky. A few minutes later… it was not going to be time to be making black and white photographs!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.