Tag Archives: range

Lake, Ridges, Evening Light

Lake, Ridges, Evening Light
Mountaintop trees stand above a sub-alpine lake, dome, and ridge in evening light, Yosemite National Park

Lake, Ridges, Evening Light. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Mountaintop trees stand above a sub-alpine lake, dome, and ridge in evening light, Yosemite National Park.

This photograph (and its appearance here) is a bit unusual for me, though not entirely unprecedented. It is a photograph that I have shared previously, back when I originally made it some years ago. During the last year and a half I have had plenty of opportunities to revisit older work. Mostly this has meant exploring raw file archives to locate work that was “left behind,” but which turned out to be interesting and valuable in retrospect — photographs that I felt deserved a first showing. But this case represents something different — the rethinking of a photograph that I thought I had finished.

Revisiting and revising one of my previously-shared photographs usually leads to some relatively obvious changes. But in this case I think that changes may be subtle. Theres a small change in how it is cropped, some new ideas about how to handle the foreground light, some important but small changes to the middle forest and peak just beyond the lake, and some new adjustments to the sky. In my view, it is perfectly natural and good to revisit the original interpretation of a photograph over time, a process that was perhaps more common in the film era.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Lava Lake Shoreline

Lava Lake Shoreline
Reflected forest along the rocky shoreline of Lava Lake, Oregon

Lava Lake Shoreline. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Reflected forest along the rocky shoreline of Lava Lake, Oregon

Today I am sharing another photograph from my family trip to Oregon this past week. Although it wasn’t primarily a photography trip, I did make a few photographs. I did head out one day with the specific intent of photographing in the Cascade Lakes area in the general area of Mt. Bachelor, but I ran into truly awful wildfire smoke. At times it was thick enough that the closest peaks were not even visible. That little photographic foray turned out to be less than fruitful… if that is an appropriate way to say that “I came back with no photographs at all!”

But one morning I was up reasonably early and most of my family members (brothers and sister and the families of their kids) were all off doing other things. So I wandered out of the campground and took a pleasant solo hike along the rocky shoreline of Lava Lake. I’m far from an expert on the geology and geography of Oregon, but I was struck by how different it is (with a few exceptions) from the California landscape that I know so well. Here, aside from the striking volcanic peaks and formations, the land has a much lower profile. In places you can travel for miles in forest (quite a bit of which has been logged) and never see much beyond the row of trees at the road’s edge. This lake, apparently like many others in this area, sits on top of a volcanic base, and the shoreline is clearly composed of volcanic rocks.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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In the Panamints, Morning

In the Panamints, Morning
Patterns or early morning light and shadow on the ridges of the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park.

In the Panamints, Morning. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Patterns or early morning light and shadow on the ridges of the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park.

There do not appear to be any icons whatsoever in this photograph, and you might be hard pressed to identify the scene as being in Death Valley. There are no visible sand dunes, no salt flats, no devils playing golf. But the fact is that terrain like this is characteristic of more of this immense national park, a place full of beautiful and spare desert mountain landscapes.

This scene is high in the Panamint Range, the mountains that run roughly north-south to the west of Death Valley proper and which separate it from the Panamint Valley. This is truly amazing country once you get to know it, a place characterized by plenty of evidence of its mining past, lots of country that is rarely visited today, and incredibly long views across a vast landscape stretching from Nevada to the Sierra.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Death Valley, Morning Haze

Death Valley, Morning Haze
Early morning haze obscures distant mountains and valleys, Death Valley National Park.

Death Valley, Morning Haze. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early morning haze obscures distant mountains and valleys, Death Valley National Park.

The truth of the matter is that I’ve become a bit obsessed with this view. I’ve photographed in morning and evening, in warm weather and in the middle of winter. (It gets cold on these ridges, even in Death Valley National Park.) On one occasion I was forced to turn back by snow on the route. I’ve seen utterly glorious light here, and I’ve encountered light so flat and gray that it wasn’t really worth photographing. Sometimes when I visit the park I tell myself that I won’t go here… and then at some point I almost inevitably end up making the trip.

Most often I’m completely alone here, though on a few occasions I’ve encountered one or two others. This place, and others like it, are remarkable at any time, but even more so when I experience them in solitude. Those mountains in the hazy distance are perhaps 30 to 40 miles away. Behind me the view stretches all the way to the snow-covered Sierra, and off to my left lie peaks well beyond the Nevada border. And everywhere in this vast expanse the landscape is laid bare, raw and visible.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | FacebookEmail

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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