Tag Archives: route

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

The Aspen Palette

February 9, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Colorful eastern Sierra autumn aspen groves along US 395.

This is another photograph from a few years back that I rediscovered while reviewing many, many photographs for a project that I’m working on. I made the photograph in mid-October along highway 395 in the eastern Sierra, where the autumn colors had finally worked their way down from the higher regions toward the valleys. This large grove of aspens is a fall favorite of mine. The sub-grove extend mostly from left to right across the scene, and the genetically related trees of each group seem to change colors at different times and to end up with different coloration — and when my timing is just right and the season cooperates, almost the entire palette of possible aspen colors can appear here at once. In this photograph we have brilliant reds at the bottom of the frame, blending through orange toward yellow/gold, with a few still-green trees and even a few that have lost most of their leaves.

As I worked on this photograph recently I realized that I made it at a time that seemed much different in California. The two preceding winters had brought record levels of precipitation, the high country had opened late with snow remaining much later than usual, and there was water everywhere. This October visit to the eastern Sierra came near the end of the second wet summer, and it looked like we were about to be in for another wet winter, with early season storms. Then the tap was shut off, and we experienced three years are terrible drought. These trees and others in the range are now under a great deal of stress, and the past autumn was a bit of a strange one. And now, in the fourth year, the Sierra is still experiencing far below normal snowfall and far above-normal temperatures.

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

Burr Trail, Strike Valley

November 17, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Burr Trail route as it ascends from Strike Valley towards the ridge of Capitol Reef National Park

The Burr Trail is one of the back routes through this section of Utah. It ranges from some decent paved sections to portions that are gravel and somewhat “rustic.” This is one of the latter section, at least for a short distance, as it climbs from the valley seen in the photograph to the top of a ridge behind my camera position inside Capitol Reef National Park before heading west toward Boulder.

This climb exposes some amazing geology, most of which I can only understand in the most basic of terms. This is the Waterpocket Fold area, where the strata are inclined steeply upwards as they rise to the west, and almost everywhere the evidence of these ancient layers of rock is abundant. Here the road enters a narrow canyon at the edge of the valley and soon climbs steeply up to the ridge that runs north-south for a good distance inside the national park. The view here is across the valley — with its central ridge “rib” — toward the steep cliffs on the opposite side of the valley and then rough terrain rising to mountains beyond.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Bixby Bridge, Pacific Coast Highway

April 21, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Pacific Coast Highway winds along the rugged California Big Sur coastline at Bixby Bridge

This is a pretty classic view of the California coastline, including a well-known section of the Pacific Coast Highway (route 1) below Monterey in the northern section of the Big Sur coast. Shot from high on bluffs above the ocean, where the highway climbs to one of its high points, the photograph looks north up the coast across pastureland on the foreground bluff towards the famous Bixby Bridge, located in the surf-filled cove just beyond. More bluffs and ridges dropping to the sea fade into the distant haze beyond that.

This was a beautiful spring day, so I got up very early and was in the Monterey area as the sun came up. The conditions were not quite what I expected. I knew that it was supposed to be windy, so I was expecting very clear conditions. The sky was clear of clouds, but there was quite a bit of low atmospheric haze – it almost looked like it wanted to be fog but couldn’t quite get it together to form clouds. This light does difficult things to colors, but it also creates an interesting contrast between the relatively clear closer objects and further subjects desaturated by the haze. It was also windy – very windy by the time I stopped shooting late in the morning.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Titus Canyon Road

December 31, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

I made this photograph during midday hours after walking a ways up into the canyon from its mouth – the alternative to making the very long drive over the Grapevine Mountains from Amargosa Valley. (I have done the latter a few times, too.) While most Death Valley subjects tend to be appealing in the early morning or in the evening, many of the canyons can be at their best during the middle of the day, especially the very deep and narrow canyons like lower Titus Canyon. Here the canyon narrows down to the point that there is only room of a single gravel track, and twists and turns around rocky outcroppings. The light striking the upper canyon walls – out of the range of this photograph – reflects down into the canyon and produces soft, diffused illumination.

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.

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Tag Archives: route

The Aspen Palette

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Burr Trail, Strike Valley

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Bixby Bridge, Pacific Coast Highway

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Titus Canyon Road

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

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