Tag Archives: rock

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Shoreline, Morning

October 24, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The shoreline of an unnamed sub-alpine lake in the Kings Canyon National Park High Sierra.

I made this photograph along the shoreline of one of the many small lakes lying within a very short walk from our back-country campsite high in the eastern Sierra near the crest in Kings Canyon National Park. On this morning I headed up canyon with vague ideas about looking for back-light, a favorite condition/subject of mine in the Sierra. I first wandered up one side of the canyon and after finishing my slow amble at a main lake I reversed my track and headed back down the other side of the narrow valley, passing this small lake.

At just about this time the sun cleared the higher ridge to our east and its morning light arrived at the shoreline. The back-light creates a fringe of light in the outer needles of the trees and it illuminates the willows and other smaller plants that were beginning to take on autumn colors. Here the clear water near the edge of the lake was very shallow, and the patterns of the submerged shoreline rocks continues the rocky character of the shoreline. In typical high Sierra fashion, there is rock everywhere, with much of the vegetation working hard to find sustenance in rocky soil between the granite outcroppings and slabs.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Shoreline Meadow, Unnamed Lake

October 16, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Granite boulders line a small rock-filled meadow near the outlet of an unnamed sub-alpine High Sierra lake, Kings Canyon National Park

This is, to say the least, a complex photograph. I am well aware that it violates all of the “rules,” especially those that suggest that a photograph should have a clear central subject. While that is often fine advice – and I often try to use a single aspect of a larger subject to say something about the larger whole – I think that in some cases it may be fine to use a photograph to portray things that are not quite so simple, and subjects or scenes where the core nature of the thing is, in fact, its overwhelming complexity of detail and form.

This was clearly a very detailed scene, and it embodies an important aspect of the character of these high sierra areas that sit just below timberline in the sub-alpine zone. While there is an order to this environment, it is not a simple order and many components work together in complex ways. I made this photograph at the outlet stream of this nameless lake, located at the 11,000′ level a very short distance from our camp. On this morning the lake’s waters were very still, reflecting the rocky surrounding terrain. (The only simple thing in this scene is the bit of reflected sky at the lower right.) The bit of foreground meadow has taken on the late summer and early fall golden and brown tones, and its surface is interrupted by embedded rocks that become more numerous near the lake’s edge and in its outlet stream. The rest of the landscape is largely one of rock – massive chunks of rock such as the dome-like feature along the far shore and the rounded and rugged shapes of the slopes above, along with fractured and shattered talus slopes composed of rock that has fallen down from the peaks above. Aside from the meadow, the only plant life visible in this landscape consists of scattered trees growing among the rocks and small clusters of alpine willows.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Unnamed Lake, Early Morning

October 8, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early morning light and cloud-filled sky reflected in the surface of an unnamed sub-alpine lake in the southern Sierra Nevada range, Kings Canyon National Park

This may have been the morning with the most dramatic light during our mid-September trip to photograph in the High Sierra back-country of Kings Canyon National Park, when a group of four photographs spent 6 nights in a beautiful 11,000′ location not far to the west of the crest of the range. Our camp was on a small rise just above my camera position, and we spent out days either looking at variations on essentially this view or wandering about in the alpine “neighborhood,” exploring and making photographs.

I have some experience with Sierra weather and I can often make some decent judgments about what is going on and where things may be headed. However, during this “shoulder season” when the transition from summer to fall and towards winter is taking place, all bets are off! During the summer, when it isn’t just another blue sky day in the Sierra, a common pattern starts with fairly clear weather, introduces a few small clouds by mid or late morning, and then builds toward possible thunderstorms and afternoon/evening showers. But this morning began with overcast that was distinctly un-thunderstorm-like, the sort of thing that I find almost impossible to read. Were we seeing some evidence of a larger pattern related to the onset of winter-season Pacific fronts? Was it merely a local weather situation that would dissipate as the day wore on? In the end, we did end up with showers late in the afternoon – as we did on over half of the days on this trip – but on this morning the only thing I knew for certain was that the light on the peaks below the cloud-dotted sky was exceptionally beautiful.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Ridge in Sun, Lake in Shadow

September 30, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early morning light from a nearby ridge is reflected in the wind-rippled “blue hour” surface of an alpine lake still in the shadows.

In this area of many, many lakes this almost seems like “yet another anonymous lake,” though it is a bit special in that it was a very short walk from the place where I was camped for six nights this late summer in the Kings Canyon National Park back-country. I could get out of my tent, wander up the hill toward a nearby ridge, and be at this location within perhaps five minutes or so. Consequently, I visited this lake several times, though always in the early morning hours when its surface was still in the shadow of a nearby large granite dome.

I’m fascinated by the very blue light found in the shadows of large mountains, domes, and cliffs. This lake is set in a somewhat deep bowl with a ridge of granite slabs along two sides, and a very tall glaciated ridge topped by a large dome on the other. These features prevent the direct sunlight from reaching the surface of the lake until some time after sunrise, and the cold, blue light remains here longer than in other locations. It was literally cold when I arrived on this morning, and gusty winds were periodically stirring up ripples on the lake’s surface. I decided to contour around one side of the lake to a point where I could gain a bit of elevation above its surface and where the warmer colors and diffused shapes of a nearby sunlit ridge were reflected, refracted, and otherwise distorted.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: rock

Shoreline, Morning

Shoreline Meadow, Unnamed Lake

Unnamed Lake, Early Morning

Ridge in Sun, Lake in Shadow

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