Tag Archives: rock

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

Trees, Snow-Covered Ledge

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Trees, Snow-Covered Ledge
A group of trees growing on a snowy ledge below Glacier Point

Trees, Snow-Covered Ledge. Yosemite Valley, California. February 26, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A group of trees growing on a snowy ledge below Glacier Point

Near the end of February I made a more-or-less annual winter visit to Yosemite Valley. (Not my only time to visit in winter, but I’m often there around the final weekend of this month, during the last few years to attend the opening of the annual Yosemite Renaissance exhibit.) This gave me a few days to photograph in the Valley during winter, which may be my favorite season there — when clouds can ring the Valley and, if I’m lucky, I might catch some snow.

I made this photograph on a very cold morning, photographing from an open meadow location below the face of Glacier Point, where granite ascends abruptly from behind what I’ll always think of as Camp Curry. I went to the meadow before dawn, with a plan to photograph this wall in shadow and then as the first light began to slant across it from the east. This cliff is a cold place this time of year — most of the time in shadow, dusted with snow, and with frozen water everywhere. The blue-tinged shadow light only increases the effect in this scene of a small group of trees managing to eke out an existence on an angled rock ledge.

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 and Amazon.
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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Red Rock, Tree

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Red Rock, Tree
A tree grows among eroded sandstone formations, Bryce Canyon National Park

Red Rock, Tree. Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah. October 6, 2012. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A tree grows among eroded sandstone formations, Bryce Canyon National Park

Recently I spent some time going back through older photographs from some visits to the Southwest, notably Utah, a few years back. I suspect that three things provoked me to do this. First, I have found that I’m not always able to completely understand my own photographs right away. Some are obviously “keepers” from the very beginning, but others only make sense after I have not looked at them for a while — so I build this periodic visit to older subjects into my workflow. Secondly, I love the Utah landscape, from its most intimate to its grandest subjects. It is a place I think about a lot, and a place that I would like to revisit often. Third, I’m acutely aware of the existential dangers to this very landscape posed by the ascendance of short-sighted, self-interested, hyper-partisan political forces in Utah right now. As a matter of principle, I have decided to not visit that state until their representatives stop trying to ruin it. (I urge you to consider contributions to the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance or other local groups working to protect Utah’s public lands for all Americans, and to join me in boycotting the state for now.)

This photograph comes from Bryce Canyon National Park, a place of great beauties… that I still haven’t quite gotten my mind around. The rugged red formations facing the rising sun certainly present a striking appearance, but working from along the main road and its offshoots I still haven’t found my vision of the place. Oddly, some of my strongest visual recollections of the place are looking back at it from the east and from a great distance. In this photograph a single small tree peeks out from behind some of the sandstone structures.

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

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

Trees, Snowy Ledge

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Trees, Snowy Ledge, Yosemite Valley
“Trees, Snowy Ledge” — Trees grow on a snowy ledge below Glacier Point

The cliffs and spires of Yosemite Valley — and not always the most iconic among them — fascinate me. While there is only one Half Dome, there are uncounted intimate vignettes of ridge, ledge, spire, light, texture, color, and atmosphere everywhere — where the cliffs meet the canyon floor, up these giant walls, and along the rim of the Valley. The variety is astonishing — something that is uninteresting in one kind of light may glow in another, what appears as a featureless face in summer may acquire relief when there is snow, changing light color brings colors out of what might otherwise seem entirely gray.

In February a spent a couple of very early (and very cold!) mornings contemplating one specific area of the Valley, staring upwards as the bluish pre-dawn glow was transformed as light came to the sky and then as beams of sunlight slanted across the granite faces and ledges. On both mornings I photographed this subject — a pair of taller trees flanked by smaller trees and brush and a dead snag, and set against a particularly varied bit of cliff texture and color.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

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

Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Imaginary Landscapes, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Cliff Detail

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Cliff Detail
A section of a Yosemite Valley cliff

Cliff Detail. Yosemite National Park, California. February 26, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A section of a Yosemite Valley cliff

I was in Yosemite Valley for the weekend, initially for the opening reception for the Yosemite Renaissance 32 exhibit in the Yosemite Museum Gallery next to the Visitor Center. Friday was all about the exhibit — the wonderful reception and then afterwards with my many friends among the artists in the show and others artists who have a connection to the event. This was also the seasonal peak of the annual Horsetail Fall excitement, a phenomenon that brings hordes of people to a couple of small areas… but consequently brings a degree of solitude and quiet to many other parts of the Valley.

In any case, my visit was also an excuse for photography. On my last morning there I was up an out in the 17 degree chill before sunrise. I headed to a nearby clear area from which I had an unobstructed view of some of the mighty cliffs. As I photographed I alternated between subjects that were typical landscape material — trees on ledges, morning light slanting across granite, snow and ice — and more abstract images focusing a sort of disembodied landscape and isolation striking bits of pattern and color high on the cliff walls.

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 and Amazon.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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