Tag Archives: pine

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

Alpenglow, Mammoth Peak

June 9, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Alpenglow lights the face of Mammoth Peak beyond a small tarn near the summit of Tioga Pass, Yosemite National Park.

This was very close to the last exposure I made on this productive late-July day last year. After photographing for a few hours in the vicinity of Tioga Pass, I ended up right at the pass as the day came to an end. Braving hordes of mosquitos – comes with the territory! – I worked the area around the pass itself, building compositions out of juxtapositions of the water in the small meltwater ponds, shoreline meadow and boulders, grasses growing along the edge of the water, the surrounding pine forests, and the more distant peaks of Kuna Crest. In this photograph, what is very nearly the very last direct light of the day is bathing the slopes of Mammoth Peak, which still had a fair amount of snow on its flanks even in late July.

This scene posed a few technical challenges. First, there is obviously a great distance between the foreground granite boulder and the very distance mountain. I wanted the foreground to be in optimal sharpness, so I used a relatively small aperture to maintain sufficient sharpness on the far ridge. There was also a fairly large dynamic range in the scene, ranging from soft but direct light on the snow fields of the peak to the dark areas within the forest on the other side of the pond. I wasn’t certain that I’d be able to handle the full dynamic range in one exposure, so I made three – one longer exposure to get a bit more light from the shadows and another shorter one on the dark side to avoid blowing out the brighter areas of the sky. In post, I discovered that there was enough detail in the shadows that I could get everything I needed from a single exposure, though I had to do some work with curves to get create an image the conforms more closely to the way I saw the scene at the time.

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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

Lodgepole Pine, Evening Shadows

May 29, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The evening shadow cast by a nearby high ridge approaches a lone lodgepole pine and an old snag near Tioga Pass, Yosemite National Park.

One of my favorite kinds of light is that found at the edges of shadows from higher peaks as they move across lower terrain. (A secret: Among other “tricks,” I like to find and follow these margins when I shoot in Yosemite Valley, too.) Because this light most often happens during the relatively early and late hours of the day, the color quality of the light tends to be warm and the angle low. As the patterns of light and shadow move across the landscape, individual elements may get picked out the light and can often be isolated against darker backgrounds, as in this photograph.

The Sierra is full of trees pretty much like this one, and such meadows with the isolated small and large trees and scattered boulders are not hard to find. This particular tree is in one of the extensive meadow areas in the general area of Tioga Pass. The photograph was made in the very late afternoon as the tall ridge to the west was blocking the sun.

Despite the still and tranquil nature of the scene, this is an example of a sort of shot that reveals the wrongness of the idea that all landscape is done slowly and methodically and with all the time in the world to work. Sometimes that is the case, but when you work the margins of shadows (or many similar dynamic subjects) there may only be brief seconds when the light is where you want it. An observer might find it humorous to watch the photographer run to get into position and then work very quickly.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Monterey Pines, Fog

March 30, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Monterey Pines growing along cliff tops on the north shore of Point Lobos State Reserve with Carmel coastline visible in the distance.

These beautiful and tough Monterey Cypress trees grow at the edges of cliffs above the Pacific Ocean along the north shore of Point Lobos, and on this foggy morning the outline of the Carmel shoreline was just barely visible beyond them. The light was difficult, but I think it ended up helping produce a very moody image that, for me, evokes that feeling of walking though this area on such a morning.

I’m one of those strange people who is usually a bit disappointed when the weather here is clear! In fact, I’ll change my mind and decide not to go photograph at Point Lobos if I hear it is going to be a beautiful blue sky day. My ideal is a day with fog or clouds or rain, and especially so if there is a chance that a bit of light might try to break through clearing (or arriving) clouds.

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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

Glacial Erratics and Trees, Lembert Dome

February 5, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Glacial erratics and trees at the base of Lembert Dome, Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park.

This photograph was made last spring in early June, when I drove over Tioga Pass on a quick one-day jaunt right around the time that the road was re-opened for the season after its annual winter closure. The road opened a bit later than usual in 2010 due to above average and late snow fall, and when I crossed there was as much or more snow than I recall seeing up there.

This was one of my marathon drive days. I started well before dawn in the San Francisco Bay Area and arrived in Yosemite in the very early morning and without any concrete plan – except that the ideas of visiting waterfalls and possibly getting up to Tioga Pass were on my mind. I did stop near the Valley first, where I made a series of photographs of Cascade Creek in virtually full flow. After doing this and making a very brief visit to the Valley, I decided to visit the high country along Tioga Pass road. I went just over the pass before turning back. There was so much snow still around that in most places it still looked much more like winter than like early June.

I finally started heading back to the west, as my plan was to return late to the SF Bay Area. As I left the pass and started down toward Tuolumne Meadows the light began to get “interesting” as the sun dropped lower in the west and some high clouds occasionally softened the light. As I drove past Lembert Dome I thought of photographing these glacial erratics that sit on the apron at the bottom of the dome before making one last stop to photograph snow-covered Tuolumne Meadow in the day’s last light.

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