Tag Archives: river

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

Forest, Afternoon Light

Leave a comment
Forest, Afternoon Light
Forest, Afternoon Light

Forest, Afternoon Light. Yosemite National Park, California. February 13, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Hazy afternoon winter light in a Yosemite Valley hardwood forest

This may have been just about the briefest visit to Yosemite Valley that I have ever made. We drove up from the Bay Area for two days and one night so that we could attend the opening reception for an art exhibit (Sierra Art Trails) in Oakhurst. We had thought that we might visit one of the Central Valley wildlife refuges on the way — and we ended up spending enough time there that it was after 3:00 when we got to the Yosemite Valley. We briefly stopped to watch people setting up to try to photograph Horsetail Fall, which we did not intend to do, and then headed up to one of the large meadows where I thought that I could photograph trees backlit by the low angle afternoon light.

I started out in a meadow, photographing trees to my west silhouetted against the hazy backlight. Finishing with this subject I wandered over to the banks of the Merced River to look for closer subjects, and as I looked west I saw this tangle of trees which gradually resolved into patterns of downward curving branches superimposed on taller tree trunks leaning to both sides. One challenge was trying to find a composition in this complexity, and another was shooting straight toward the sun without ending up with lens flare. The first took some careful thought, while the second required some contortions to shade the lens with my hand.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Merced River, Branches, El Capitan

2 Comments
Merced River Reflections
Merced River Reflections

Merced River Reflections. Yosemite Valley, California. November 30, 2005. © Copyright 2005 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Branches in the still water of the Merced River with floating autumn leaves and the reflection of El Capitan, Yosemite Valley.

This photograph is almost a bit of an optical trick. I’ll let you look for a second and figure it out…

… Does it make sense now? The foreground is composed of some intertwining dead branches just above the surface of a very still section of the quiet, late autumn Merced River in Yosemite Valley. The leaves floating on and just beneath the surface of the water give it away. Because there are so many branches, their dark reflections seem, to me at least, to almost merge with the shapes of the actual branches, creating a complex pattern. And, reflected in the surface of the water and appearing as a backdrop to these elements, is the sunlit face of El Capitan.

I would love to tell a great story about making this photograph… but I don’t remember making it! I discovered it only recently while reviewing all of my old raw files, and all I can say for sure is that I made it on one of my annual late October trips to The Valley to photograph the fall colors. For those who follow the technical stuff, I made this photograph with some pretty low-level gear back at a time when I was experimenting with my first DSLR. The camera was the very humble (but better than some think, at least for this sort of thing!) Canon Digital Rebel XT, an early 8 MP body. Even more humble was the lens, the not so swell EFS 17-85mm Canon lens.

(Note: This was originally posted on September 21, 2011. I’m moving this photograph back up on the home page today as this is a new revision of the original photograph — the date of the revision is December 26, 2014)

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Autumn Cottonwoods, Red Rock Cliffs

Leave a comment
Autumn Cottonwoods, Red Rock Cliffs
Autumn Cottonwoods, Red Rock Cliffs

Autumn Cottonwoods, Red Rock Cliffs. Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. October 22, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Cottonwood trees with autumn leaves along the Fremont River at the base of red rock cliffs

This was a long day of photography, beginning before dawn with a drive to the east side of Capitol Reef National Park for dawn photograph and then down toward the Burr Trail to explore some highland locations a bit later. We returned to our camp in the middle of the day for lunch (which, if I recall correctly, may have been a pie from the little shop near the campground!), a bit of camp business, followed by heading back out again for late-day photography.

We didn’t get far. We again headed east — I don’t recall now what the plan, if any, actually was — but we soon were distracted by subjects nearby along the road passing through the park: cottonwood and box elder trees in fall colors, the red sandstone cliffs, jumbles of rocks fallen from the canyon walls, and the Fremont River flowing through the canyon. Shortly before sunset we simply pulled over, go out, and headed of in individual directions to photograph until the light failed. This scene includes a small group of very colorful cottonwood trees growing along the edge of the Fremont River at the base of the red rock cliffs.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.

Equipment, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Lake and Shoreline, Evening

Leave a comment
Lake and Shoreline, Evening
Lake and Shoreline, Evening

Lake and Shoreline, Evening. Sequoia National Park, California. August 2, 2010. © Copyright 2010 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening light comes to a remote alpine lake in the Sierra Nevada backcountry.

I made this photograph from more or less our campsite on a backpacking trip to this remote area of the upper Kern River drainage in the southern Sierra Nevada back in 2010. It was a trip that combined the familiar and the new, that took me to a spot that I had first thought of visiting decades before, and which provided some surprises. The first few days of the trip covered familiar ground over a couple of high passes and dropped us into the upper Kern on the John Muir Trail. At this point we left the JMT and followed less traveled routes for the remainder of our visit.

Our first departure from the JMT was to head south of northwest into the upper Kern’s more remote areas. We were not so far out on the fringe that there were no trails, but the trails were clearly not well used and we saw very few people. The area is not easy to get to nor is it really on the route between other major points, so those that go there pretty much just go there. Eventually we worked our way over towards the foot of the Great Western Divide, to an area full of intimate meadow/rock landscapes and small lakes. Here we found a beautiful campsite that gave no hints that it had been occupied before. I’m sure it had been, but it is unusual to find such a place in the Sierra that is visited so infrequently that there are not obvious signs of the previous visitors. We set up camp, engaged in warfare with marauding mosquitos, wandered about a bit, and settled in to watch the day come to an end.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.