Tag Archives: ridge

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Trees, Rocky Ridge, Sunset

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Trees, Rocky Ridge, Sunset
Wildfire smoke turns the sunset deep red on a rock and tree covered Yosemite wilderness ridge.

Trees, Rocky Ridge, Sunset. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Wildfire smoke turns the sunset deep red on a rock and tree covered Yosemite wilderness ridge.

Every so often the sky coughs up some light that is almost unbelievable, and I feel obligated to say that, yes, this really did happen… and perhaps offer an explanation. In this case the story is a combination of location Every so often the sky coughs up some unbelievable light, and I feel obligated to say that, yes, this really did happen… and perhaps offer an explanation. In this case the story is a combination of location and conditions. This granite dome-like ridge is located in the Yosemite backcountry overlooking a large canyon and with an unobstructed view to the western horizon. That distant horizon is across the Great Central Valley and marked by the Coast Range. Because the ridge is high the line to the sun right at sunset goes though a lot of atmosphere, which tends to soften and warm the light. On top of that, this was the season of widespread wildfire smoke, and that added to the bloody red color of the light on this ridge.

I had been out on an evening walk away from camp that took me up to a high point on the ridge behind this camera position. I made photographs up there and then started to walk along the backbone of the ridge that would take me back to camp. As I came around to this section that is open to the west, the color of the light was just about as intense as it gets. I dropped my camera bag, popped up my tripod, and made a few exposures during the last moments before the sun dropped below the horizon.

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

Coastal Farm, Burned Ridge

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Coastal Farm, Burned Ridge
Foggy morning at a coastal far at the base of hill burned by recent wildfires.

Coastal Farm, Burned Ridge. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Foggy morning at a coastal far at the base of hill burned by recent wildfires.

On one hand, this is a pleasant enough scene. I had headed to the California coast just north of Santa Cruz for the morning. This is one of the closest coastal locations to me, and I can be in sight o the ocean in a bit over a half hour or so. It was a typical late-spring coastal morning, with thick fog around the peaks as I drove over, and “high fog” (aka “low clouds”) all along the coast. The fog breaks up first over land, and along the this edge of the fog there is often lovely light — mixed sun and shadow, misty atmosphere, and a general soft glow. The bucolic little farm sits against the base of coastal hills, on a flat area near small lagoons.

But there’s something else in this photograph that you may have noticed if you looked closely. That far, upper ridge should be shrouded in forest trees… not the bare, skeletal remains of trees destroyed by last year’s wildfires in the Big Basin region. As a Californian, I’m used to the late-summer and early-autumn wildfire season. In the past decade or so, however, it has become worse and more widespread as the combination of unusual heat and drought have stressed the landscape. This past fire season all kinds of places burned where don’t usually expect to see such huge fires, including locations like this one where the charred forests extend to within sight of the ocean, and in a few cases all the way to it.

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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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

In the Panamints, Morning

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

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

From Lake to Peaks

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From Lake to Peaks
Light on a rocky saddle at the upper end of a subalpine lake beneath rugged peaks, John Muir Wilderness.

From Lake to Peaks. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Light on a rocky saddle at the upper end of a subalpine lake beneath rugged peaks, John Muir Wilderness.

This was the view from my “front porch” during a week of backcountry photography in the Eastern Sierra during the summer of 2019, the last backcountry trip I managed before the shutdown cancelled most plans for 2020. Our group of (mostly) photographers camped near timberline in the John Muir Wilderness, photographing the surrounding landscape daily in a wide range of conditions.

Eastside Sierra locations create different photographic conditions than those to the west of the crest. The sharper profile here, as the range rises abruptly for high desert to ridges that can top 14, 000′, is wild and spectacular, and the east-facing escarpment is in the first morning light. But there are challenges, too. For example, scenes often fall into shadow well before sunset. In this location the ridge angles enough to the west and northwest that some sunlight sweeps across the face of the peaks late in the day, and a gap to the west allowed some of that light to fall on the rocky saddle beyond the water at the bottom of the frame.

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 | Facebook | Email

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.