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Events, Gallery, News, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

A Reprise: “Fractured Granite, Reflections”

February 28, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

: Fractured Granite, Reflections

Today I am reprising a photograph that I shared previously since it is part of the Yosemite Renaissance XXIX exhibit opening this weekend in the Yosemite Museum Gallery in The Valley.

An exhibition of contemporary art of Yosemite and the Sierra
Saturday, March 1 to Sunday, May 11, 2014
Yosemite Museum Gallery, Yosemite National Park

The first event of the show is tonight…

The public is invited to the
Awards Reception, Friday, February 28 from 5:30 to 7:30 PM

Perhaps I’ll see you there!

Now, to the text of the original post, plus a more recent addition…

The base of a rugged granite wall reflected in the still surface of a sub-alpine Sierra Nevada lake

A few days ago I returned from a 9-day trip into the back-country of Kings Canyon National Park. I was one of a group of four photographers who traveled to a remote location at about 11,000′, where we remained for more than five days, photographing the surrounding terrain morning and evening. We followed the common routine of such work – up before dawn and off to investigate and photograph some valley or lake, back by mid or late morning for breakfast, generally hanging out and doing camp chores during the midday period when the light is often less exciting, then back out in the late afternoon for a few more hours of exploration and photography before returning to camp for a post-sunset dinner. Unlike a typical backpack trip, where one rarely stays in the same place for long, we remained in the same camp for six nights, allowing us to really get to know the surrounding area very well.

With so much time, we were frequently able to return to places that we had already visited – perhaps coming back in the evening after a morning visit, returning to try again to catch a subject that didn’t have the right light the first time, or shooting the subject in various conditions ranging from clear skies to rain. This bit of interesting rock was next to a lake that I walked to on a number of occasions, and on this morning I arrived when the lake was still in shadow but illuminated by light reflected from nearby rock faces. Because it was so early the air was very still, allowing me to photograph this very sharp reflection of the fractured granite cliff where it entered the water. A bit of vegetation just above the waterline has taken on early fall colors.

Addendum: It occurred to me last week that there is a (perhaps tenuous?) connection between this photograph – with its theme of a vertical rock face above placid water – and this one by Ansel Adams that I had an early connection to: http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/photographs/ansel-adams-lake-precipice-frozen-lake-and-5056399-details.aspx – I have a personal connection to the place, which I wrote about here: https://gdanmitchell.com/2010/01/14/a-photograph-exposed-submerged-boulders-precipice-lake

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

Kelp and Stone

February 27, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Kelp washed up on sandstone rocks at Weston Beach, California

I met a group of photographer friends at Point Lobos on this mid-February day, where we spent the entire morning photographing before taking a midday break, followed by a quick visit to another location a bit further down the Pacific Coast Highway, and then a return to Point Lobos in the early evening. Perhaps to no one’s surprise, we started shooting near Weston Beach – but perhaps to everyone’s surprise, we were still shooting there when lunchtime rolled around! Fortunately, the light was somewhat cooperative, with some high clouds muting the sun that would otherwise have been too intense by that time of day.

We did not limit ourselves entirely to Weston Beach, and we wandered a bit north and south along bluff and rocks at times, photographing the huge winter surf. Eventually I ended up back at the “beach” (which seems not very beach-like at all, being mostly layered rock and big gravelly rocks) where I always like to look around slowly for interesting arrangements of whatever the sea throws up here. In one spot I found a pair of marble-round rocks, one pink and the other deep blue. Here I found a beautifully twisted and curved bit of kelp sitting on top of deeply patterned rocks not far from the edge of the water. In fact, it was so close to the water’s edge that I was only able to make a couple of exposures before a wave came far enough up on the beach to wash this kelp back out into the sea.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Dune Detail, Last Light

February 7, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A last beam of light slants across rippled sand dunes and a few desert plants, Death Valley National Park

After a long day of driving and photographing along a back-country road in Death Valley National Park, I finally made it back to my campground in the mid-afternoon. (You might wonder how I can claim a “long day” when I finished in the mid afternoon – something about starting a couple of hours before dawn in temperatures in the teens!) I took a short break and did a few camp chores, and then it was time to head out once again for an evening shoot. I decided to make it something fairly simple that wouldn’t require a lot of travel, so I ended up at some dunes just before sunset.

While I’m not unwilling to shoot big, long views of dunes – sometimes they are quite impressive! – more often I focus on some smaller aspect of them, and I really like looking very closely when I can. One of the great things about focusing on the small details is that once you start to see them you find them everywhere – even in places that you might not think are all that spectacular. As I walked out into the dunes, with only a general sense of where I wanted to go, it was not long at all before I started noticing all sorts of subjects in the long shadows and warm light of the oncoming evening. Many subjects, such as this one, are illuminated by extremely transient light – slanting at a low angle across the tops of dunes and momentarily catching a plant or a bit of dune texture. I probably had little more than a minute to work with this subject and then the light disappeared – and I quickly found another similar subject and then another and so on until the light finally was gone.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Canyon Wall in Reflected Light

December 29, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pink and blue canyon wall and plants in midday light reflected from a nearby cliff

This is the second photograph I made along this section of curiously colorful cliff face deep in the “narrows” of a Death Valley National Park canyon. I have visited this place a number of times – it isn’t all that hard to get to – and often found it to be a very challenging photographic subject. I have shot it before, but mostly made it work by including people in the frame or by shooting subjects above the canyon rather than at the bottom. Because it is so deep – and it lacks the beautiful reddish rock of the Southwest – the depths of the canyon are often simply dark and somewhat drab.

As I passed through this time I took a slower pace than sometime, and I’m sure I saw things that I had overlooked before. This was certainly the first time that I had noticed the pink tinge to the rocks in this spot, much less the subtle blue tones of the underlying layers, the interesting rippled patterns, and the glow of light from an opposite canyon wall. I almost kept going but something told me to slow down and spend a bit of time here looking around, and I finally decided to see what compositions I could make out of the cracked rock and very sparse plants.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: plant

A Reprise: “Fractured Granite, Reflections”

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Kelp and Stone

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Dune Detail, Last Light

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Canyon Wall in Reflected Light

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

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