Tag Archives: river

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

Dormant Trees, Granite

March 30, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A granite cliff towers above dormant trees along the Merced River, Yosemite Valley

Winter can produce a softer and subtler Yosemite Valley, one that can sometimes be just a bit tricky to photograph. Perhaps the most obvious subjects in the winter are found on days when there is snow, or when storm clouds and mists shroud the cliffs and ridges. As a matter of fact, those are the things I’m usually hoping to find when I visit the Valley at this time of year.

But the true nature of the Valley in winter includes some subtler subjects, sometimes nearly devoid of the greens of spring and summer or the colors of fall. Truth be told, the meadows are brown and trees lose their leaves, the clouds can block or filter the light, and many sections of the surrounding cliffs can be in shadow. This photograph is such a scene — winter dormant trees along the banks of the Merced River, brown meadows underneath and stretching beyond, and the steel-gray colors of shadowed granite above.

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

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Fall Color, River Canyon

March 18, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cottonwood trees and other fall color along the bottom of a river canyon, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

I made this photograph a few years back on a beautiful autumn day when a small group of friends walked down a river canyon, exploring and photographing the river, the vegetation, and the rocky walls. Direct sunlight does not reach the bottom of these canyons most of the time, especially during the times of the year when the sun’s path is lower in the sky and the daylight hours are shorter. Instead, the light strikes the upper walls, bouncing back and forth, diffusing and picking up the color of rocks and fall leaves as it makes its way downwards. If you look, you can see it in this photograph — in the glow on the canyon wall, the saturated colors of the leaves, and the light making its way into shadows.

Such canyons are wonderful places to go if you want to be cut off from the rest of the world. The landscape above the canyons is often relatively bare, perhaps dry and flat with occasional junipers. But none of that flat land world is visible once you are down in the canyon, where cottonwoods and brush spring up along the creek and every bend promises something new an interesting.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Sandstone and Singleleaf Ash

February 4, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A singleleaf ash tree stretches across red sandstone wall, Utah

I love the stunning sandstone landscapes of Southern Utah — a world of canyons intimate or huge, smooth red sandstone walls, the force of water, juniper trees, flatlands and mountains, and the thought-provoking presence of people who lived here before we came. When I return to my California landscapes from Utah they always seem a bit… gray. I made this photograph on a visit a bit more than four years ago, when I joined several photographer friends to explore places from Zion National Park to Capitol Reef National Park, spending time in some of the stunning national monument lands in between. I made this photograph in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, a place that surely is deserving of national park status.

Back in 2012 during this visit, I thought about how my country had the foresight to protect such quintessential American landscapes and hold them in trust for all Americans today and long into the future. It did not even cross my mind that they might soon again be in danger. But they are, including this very place, now described by self-serving politicians intent on taking the land that we own and giving it away to private interests as being “places where no one goes” or places that are just empty desert. This is, of course, nonsense and only a liar or worse could make such a claim with a straight face. Once again, it appears that it will be time to have to try to re-save these places.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

River Bank and Forest

November 26, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Hillside forest along the Big River, Northern California

For Californians who have experienced the recent 4-5 years of drought and the awful effects on many of the state’s forests — particularly the Sierra Nevada, where millions of trees have reportedly been lost — a visit to the relatively lush temperate rain forest country of coastal Northern California is a treat. Here, at least to my eyes, there is now little sign of the drought, and we can wander these forests and it almost feels like nothing has changed. (The truth, unfortunately, is that profound changes are taking place in the climate and the natural world of this state and beyond — and wishful thinking will not counter that reality.)

We ended up in this spot almost by accident. I had the idea of heading down to a beach near the outlet of a river where we had watched kayaks being launched a year or so ago. I thought it was near this spot — turns out I was wrong — so we took a turn-off and ended up on the “wrong” side of the highway, upstream and away from the coastal beach. Instead we were at a small estuary just above the meeting of the Big River and the ocean, where marine mammals came upstream to lounge on small islands, where we heard but did not see geese, and where the thick forest grows right down to the water’s edge.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: river

Dormant Trees, Granite

Fall Color, River Canyon

Sandstone and Singleleaf Ash

River Bank and Forest

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