“The Circus” — A sectoin of the historic Circus, Bath, England.
Perhaps you are thinking, “If that is a photo of a circus, where are the clowns?” It isn’t that kind of circus. This “circus” is a marvelous example of Georgian architecture in Bath, England. At a high point in the city a circle of fancy apartments wrap around a small, central park, broken only few narrow entrances to the inner area. It is hard (panorama photographs anyone?) to make a photograph of the entire structure without taking to the air, so I decided to focus on a small section.
Two autumn aspens in a small clearing, surrounded by a circular grove of larger trees
Thinking that I would like to explore some new areas, in late September I headed out to Great Basin National Park along the eastern border of Nevada, just a few miles from Utah. I picked this time to go since I knew that Utah aspen color can peak than that in California — late September rather than early October — and I figured that the same calendar might work in Nevada. I made the long (12 hour!) drive from the San Francisco Bay Area to Baker, Nevada in a day, and the next morning I set out to enjoy a rare thing — the first experience in a new (to me) national park. To describe it briefly, much of the park encompasses and mountain range among the many found in Nevada’s basin and range country. The highest peak is over 13,000′ tall and even supports a small glacier. This high area is, at least to most people, on of the two main features of the park. The other is Lehman Caves, which I did not visit on this trip.
While much of Nevada is “basin,” and therefore dry and without a ton of vegetation, these mountain ranges can support a lot of life. They are often covered with forests, and there are lots of aspens if you look in the right places. The aspens were high on my list of photographic targets. But it seemed that I may have slightly miscalculated on the dates of peak color, and when I arrived many of the trees were still quite green. (Others had apparently just dropped leaves, and late in the visit I finally did “discover” a less-traveled canyon with lots of colorful trees.) I found one lookout high in the mountains from which I could look across a large valley, and in this valley there are quite a few aspens — solid groves of them and other trees interspersed with the conifers. This small grove caught my attention with its unusual arrangement — a ring of trees surrounding a couple of isolated trees.
Canon is offering an Instant Rebate on Canon Lenses and Speedlites of up to $300 through September 29 1, 2012. The promotion includes a large selection of lenses (zooms, primes, L, non-L, EFS, wide to telephoto, macro, tilt/shift), tele-extenders (1.4x and 2x), and electronic flashes including the most recent models. If you have been considering any of this gear, there is a good chance that you can save a bit on your purchase.
The following list includes links that you can use to purchase from site-sponsor B&H Photo. Your purchases through these links are appreciated as they help support this site – thanks! Expires soon – on September 29 1, 2012)
As always, I post offers like these on the Deals page, and not just for Canon. Similar deals are listed there on products from Adobe, Nikon, and more. Updated earlier today, and several expire very soon – including a very low price on Photoshop CS6 for Windows and additional discounts on Adobe Lightroom 4, Photoshop Elements 10, and a Photoshop Elements 10/Premier Elements 10 bundle.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Brilliant gold and red fall aspens ring the upper shore of North Lake as the Sierra Crest towers above.
Somewhat past the “golden hours” of first light I investigated a hill above this lake as a possible shooting location. Because this was a morning of mixed clouds and sun, the time for good light was more extended than it might otherwise have been. The clouds began thicker and gradually began to thin, and as they did so the mixed sun and cloud shadows moved continually across the landscape, spotlighting different parts of the scene. This was one of those situations that puts the lie to the notion that the landscape is a fixed and static thing – from my perspective the entire scene was in a constant state of flux and photographing it required full attention. Here most of the shadows had cleared from the scene, with the exception of some over the foreground lake and a few scattered among the peaks, and beams of light slanted into the scene to light up the grove of brilliantly colorful fall aspens.
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.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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