Tag Archives: rain

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

September Rain

December 6, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

September rain falls on a Yosemite backcountry lake

Autumn in the Sierra is time of wonderful transitions — it is my favorite time of year to be there. For the most part the weather is still beautiful, with warm days and pleasantly chilly evenings and early mornings. The light is special — it is hard to put my finger on the precise quality, but somehow it feels warmer and softer than in the summer. Meadows turn golden brown and many plants take on their autumn colors. It feels like everything is slowing.

There can also be storms. These are not the brief afternoon thunderstorms of summer. They are the first harbingers of winter — the large Pacific weather fronts that begin to push in and which will eventually bring winter snow. We had such a storm — though it was a gentle one — on our visit, and it rained off and on for the final two days of our stay. I made this photograph along the shoreline of “our” lake, with fall colors in the foreground and a passing shower in front of the distant peak.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Eastern Sierra Ridges, Rain

November 22, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A passing squall drops rain on hills at the base of the Eastern Sierra

I first stopped here with a very different sort of photograph in mind. I pulled off US395 just north of Bishop in a spot where I knew I could overlook pastureland spotted with autumn color cottonwood trees and backed by the mighty eastern escarpment of the Sierra. But the weather was extremely changeable, and within minute a passing squall almost completely obliterated the view, leaving me looking mostly at a thick curtain of falling rain.

I waited a bit, hiding under the rear door of my vehicle with my tripod set up, and before long the conditions began to change again — I could see that the moisture-filled atmosphere was beginning to glow to the south where clouds were thinning and sun was illuminating the falling rain. As I watched, the distant low hills of the eastern Sierra gradually began to re-emerge. These conditions not only make the view opaque but they also desaturate the colors. Believe it or not… this minimalist landscape is a color photograph!

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Receding Ridges, Rain

November 5, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A squall moves across hills near the base of the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada

This photograph belongs to a portion of my work that I think of as minimalist landscapes. They often focus on landscapes that are largely hidden or in which some elements are obscured. Not all involve mist, clouds, fog, and rain, but quite a few do. In many of them I am trying to work with a kind of light that is very special to me, where the atmosphere itself becomes luminous, perhaps when filled with haze or fog or dust and lit from behind, producing a kind of glowing effect that can be so bright that it is hard to look into.

On this day I had, or so I thought, finished my autumn photography on this trip, and I was in my “heading home” mode. I had driven down from the mountains, where I had photographed in rain and incoming light snow earlier in the morning, stopped in a town along US 395 for coffee and something to eat, then gotten into my vehicle to hit the road. Not 15 minutes north of town I came to a familiar spot where I often stop to admire the view and sometimes photograph. I pulled over and went a ways up a side road and watched the landscape disappear behind rain and clouds as a squall moved through. I set up under the rear door of my vehicle so that I could have some shelter from the rain, and I began looking for places in the landscape where there was just enough detail to suggest its form but no more than necessary. (Trivia fact: This is a color photograph!)

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

Subalpine Lake, Dusk

September 24, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dusk comes to a Sierra Nevada subalpine lake on a rainy evening

Near the middle of September three of us spent a week camped at one Yosemite back-country lake, photographing the lake and its surroundings every day in a range of conditions. At times we dealt with this summer’s extremes of wildfire smoke, which was occasionally so thick that it almost seemed like fog and it made breathing difficult. But each day, even on the smokiest days, the wind picked up and it cleared out enough to make photographs — some days the early morning was clear and the smoke drifted in later, while on other days we started out with murky conditions and then watched them clear.

A bit to our surprise, on the last few days a weather front came through and we had much more “interesting” weather — rain, wind, hail, graupel, and clouds swirling around the nearby peaks. On this evening the clouds were gathering — it would rain later that night — and patterns of lighter and darker clouds filled the sky above our lake. Late in the evening, as the light was beginning to fail, I walked a short distance from my tent, set up along the shoreline, and mad some photographs of this mysterious scene in the fading light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: rain

September Rain

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Eastern Sierra Ridges, Rain

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Receding Ridges, Rain

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Subalpine Lake, Dusk

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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.