Tag Archives: rapids

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

Bridal Veil Creek

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Bridal Veil Creek
Bridal Veil Creek

Bridal Veil Creek. Yosemite Valley, California. May 16, 2008. © Copyright 2008 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Bridal Veil Creek rushes and curves through boulders and forest, Yosemite Valley

This photograph has been sitting quietly in the RAW file archive for five years. I made a note to myself last year to go back and revisit it, and I left the note sitting on my computer desktop… but didn’t get back to it until this week.

This is a fairly classic Yosemite Valley scene, I think, being along the banks of Bridal Veil Creek not far below the famous waterfall with the same name. As I usually do, I had made a spring trip to the Valley to photograph during the period of high water and green foliage and had probably just indulged my tradition of arriving in the Valley and standing in the spray of this waterfall before getting down to the business of making photographs. I considered a color rendition of this photograph, with the subtle colors of the rocks and the water, but decide to go with a more “classic” black and white image – and, yes, I thought about some specific photographs by certain well-known photographers of Valley subjects that also focus on densely complex scenes with lots of details, a type of photographic challenge that I enjoy.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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

Whitewater, Tenaya Creek

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Whitewater, Tenaya Creek
Whitewater, Tenaya Creek

Whitewater, Tenaya Creek. Yosemite National Park, California.June 28, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Turbulent whitewater flows through an area of steep granite along Tenaya Creek, Yosemite National Park.

You can, of course, find a place to shoot subjects like this one all over the Sierra and no doubt in many other places as well. This photograph was made during a period of relatively high water early in the season and in a spot where the water flowed over some rocks in shade. Sunlight on the other side of the stream reflected into the water and revealed highlights, especially the flying spray that I allowed to blur with a somewhat slow shutter speed.

The moving water in Sierra streams and rivers seems to be an almost irresistible subject for many photographers, and I confess that I count myself among them. In some ways it is almost too easy to make these photographs, and one basic requirement is a willingness to make quite a few exposures. The instantaneous motion of the water and the reflections of light simply cannot be controlled or predicted, so one almost has to make many, many exposures. Of course, there is a bit more to it than pointing the camera at water and then repeatedly pressing the shutter release. It is important to find some sort of compositional interest first – it could be where water flows around or over a rock, a place where the light catches the water, or possibly just the twisting forms of turbulent water. Light is extra important in these photographs I think – most often the colors come from a combination of the blue-green shades of water full of foam and from reflected light from things that are out of the frame. (In this photograph, the light mostly comes from sunlight reflected off of granite on the far side of the stream.) Shutter speed is an important consideration, as a short exposure will stop or nearly stop the water and freeze the motion, a somewhat longer exposure can hold some detail but still allow blur along the direction of the flow, and very long exposures can create a misty and diffuse effect.

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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

Confluence of Cascade and Tamarack Creeks

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Confluence of Cascade and Tamarack Creeks
Confluence of Cascade and Tamarack Creeks

Confluence of Cascade and Tamarack Creeks. Yosemite National Park, California. January 16, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Long exposure in evening light of the boulder-strewn confluence of Cascade and Tamarack Creeks, Yosemite National Park.

Right below the bridge along the Crane Flat Road (often described as highway 120) route into Yosemite Valley, two wildly cascading creeks join together before their final descent to the bottom of the canyon where they join with the Merced River. Cascade Creek is probably the better known of the two since some spectacular sections of its descent are clearly visible right above the roadway. Tamarack Creek is easier to miss since you have to look carefully into the trees if you try to spot it from your car, or else get out of the car and look more closely. In the photograph, Cascade Creek flows away from the bottom of the frame, and Tamarack joins from the right in the upper portion of the frame.

I’ve always paid more attention to the section of Cascade Creek that is above the bridge. However, after recently having several opportunities to carefully (and admiringly) view Charlie Cramer’s stunning print of his “Cascade Creek, Spring, Yosemite”, I decided that I really needed to look off the other side of this bridge! (Charlie, I found your rocks. First, I’m even more impressed now that I realize how obscure and out of the way the subject of your photograph is. Second, how the heck did you position the camera over the side of the bridge to make that photograph!?) With that in mind, I visited this spot several times on this weekend trip to Yosemite and tried photographing it in different types of light.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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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: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Submerged Rocks and Reflected Light, Tenaya Creek

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Submerged Rocks and Reflected Light, Tenaya Creek

Submerged Rocks and Reflected Light, Tenaya Creek. Yosemite National Park, California. May 9, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two rocks submerged by spring runoff water in Tenaya Creek with reflectioned light from new growth on the opposite bank, Yosemite Valley, California.

This is basically the vertical format version of the scene that I posted earlier – high and fast spring runoff flow in Tenaya Creek just below Mirror Lake, with color reflected from new spring growth on the far bank of the creek.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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