Tag Archives: ridge

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

Subalpine Lake, Forest, and Ridges

September 30, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening light on a forested subalpine lake backed by alpine peaks and ridges, Yosemite National Park

When photographing or even when just looking at the world as a photographer, there are certain things that consistently get my attention — and several of them appear in this straightforward Sierra scene. I’m a sucker for layers, and there we have quite a few: the foreground forest trees, the lake with its reflecting water, the forest rising up the slopes on the opposite shore toward a granite dome, and across a deep canyon that is not directly visible there are high, alpine peaks whose features are muted in the atmospheric haze. And, yes, that haze is another thing that I often look for when making photographs.

Like many photographers, I also have an eye for juxtapositions and relationships between shapes and angles and curves and lines. If I recall correctly, the first thing that drew my attention about this scene was not the obvious lake but was instead the relationship between the granite knob just beyond the lake and the shapes of the high ridge in the distance. In fact, I made a series of photographs of those two things at different times of day and from somewhat different locations. All of that aside, the photograph also portrays a more natural sort of light than the warm and saturated light that we often photograph closer to sunrise and sunset.

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

Granite, Forest, and Lake

September 26, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

View of rugged northern Yosemite terrain of forest, lakes, and peaks, as seen from the top of a glaciated granite ridge

I went exploring on this evening, checking out the spine of this glaciated granite ridge above the lake where we were camped. It was only a short walk, first along the forested shore of the lake, then up the gradual incline of smooth granite benches and over a few bits or broken terrain to the top. This wasn’t the highest point around, but it was high enough, and it was full of trees that would catch the evening light as the day came to an end.

This is quintessential high Sierra scenery. Underfoot is glaciated granite, topped with glacial erratic rocks and boulders left behind when glaciers retreated from this area thousands of years ago. The granite has weathered, and where sand and plant material collect in pockets and cracks plants have managed to take hold, ranging from small grasses to rugged trees. Below the granite ridge the soil is thicker and forest trees grow around a subalpine lake. The terrain drops off into the canyon of the Tuolumne River on the other side of the lake and in the distance are the high, alpine peaks of the Cathedral Range.

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

Lake, Ridges, Evening Light

September 16, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

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

In early September — before the big fire not far from here — I was among a group of photographers who spent a bit more than a week in the Yosemite back-country chasing late summer subjects in the Range of Light. The rough outline of the adventure was that the group packed in to a remote lake with expansive views, stayed there for about five days, then adjourned to a nearby area at a lower elevation for a few more days before heading back out. The “Meadow Fire” between Clouds Rest and Mount Starr King started late in our trip, but this photograph was made a few days earlier when skies were still beautifully clear.

Days on this kind of trip revolve almost completely around photographic opportunities. By staying on one place for a few days we are able to explore our surroundings more extensively and get a better idea of the prospects for photographs and the best times to make them. A typical day begins very early in the morning, when we arise quietly before sunrise and head out in various directions, goals in mind. After a few hours of photography the light becomes a bit less interesting and we reassemble in camp for breakfast. After that we have a few hours of mostly non-photographic time — for lunch, for camp chores, reading, and even a nap. Dinner comes early, with preparations starting around 3:00, and a few hours before sunset we head out once again. On this evening I chose to climb a nearby ridge of granite slabs and glacial erratics where stubborn trees find a living in cracks in the rock overlooking a nearby lake and one of the main ridges of the Yosemite back-country.

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

Cove, Haze, Evening Light

August 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Hazy sunset light on a small cove and successive ridges along the Pacific Coast Highway

The California Big Sur coast along the Pacific Coast Highway is a place of extraordinary beauty, but also light and conditions that change on a scale ranging from daily to seasonally. Summer often brings a lot of fog — enough fog to sometimes perplex and disappoint visitors who have seen photographs of beautiful summer vistas and imagine that they are the norm. They aren’t. Summer is the season of almost daily fog here. Fall and winter are more likely to provide those vistas, especially between the passage of great Pacific storms that sweep the atmosphere clear of fog and which may bring dramatic clouds. The “off-season” is also the time of the most impressive seascape, as those same winter storms can bring very high surf.

The foggy time of summer does have its attractions, especially when you become aware of the daily cycles. It is often foggy early in the morning, but the fog usually clears back to and beyond the coast later in the day. Photographing in the fog is special, though it can require you to look at the landscape in quite different ways. But as the fog clears you can follow the edges of the fog and light and discover all sorts of interesting and dynamic conditions. Once the fog does clear, the atmosphere often remains somewhat hazy. I know that some people think they want perfectly clear air, but I’ll take a bit of atmospheric haze over perfect clarity almost any day! This was a day of such haze, and very late in the day it began to glow in golden hour light and obscure the farthest parts of the seemingly unending series of Big Sur ridges dropping to the sea.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: ridge

Subalpine Lake, Forest, and Ridges

Granite, Forest, and Lake

Lake, Ridges, Evening Light

Cove, Haze, Evening Light

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