Tag Archives: sailor

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Ridge And Lake, Twilight

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Ridge And Lake, Twilight
The last twilight alpenglow on peaks above a John Muir Wilderness lake

Ridge And Lake, Twilight. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The last twilight alpenglow on peaks above a John Muir Wilderness lake.

A group of us spent last week base-camped at 11,000′ in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, in an open landscape of lakes, meadows, granite slabs, and high ridges. Our most pressing concerns were making photographs, reveling in our surroundings, and enjoying one another’s company. We do this every year — some have been doing it for nearly two decades, I’ve been part of it for about ten years, and we added one new participant this time. In some following posts I’ll have more to say about the goals and experience of such a thing.

Because of our location, each evening the final light would fall on a long ridge above a high, glaciated valley to our southeast. Although the sun had already set, this high spot was open to light coming from the other side of the Sierra crest, far to the west and perhaps even along the distant Pacific coast. Set against the twilight sky and shadowed nearer landscape of rock, water, and trees, this last bit of light was dramatic, and it never failed to capture our attention.

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: Sierra Nevada

Fractured Stone Landscape

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Fractured Stone Landscape
A small subalpine lake, fractured granite slabs, and peaks on the Sierra Nevada crest

Fractured Stone Landscape. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A small subalpine lake, fractured granite slabs, and peaks on the Sierra Nevada crest.

This is the sort of Sierra Nevada landscape that usually appeals most strongly to me — that terrain just below the upper limits of trees, where small lakes and tarns dot the landscape, small meadows lie among them, high peaks tower, and rocks and slabs and boulders are everywhere. The latter — the “rocks and slabs and boulders” — are the most defining element of this landscape, all the way from the granite underfoot to the fractured faces and ridges of the peaks.

This spot, high in the Eastern Sierra, is essentially “at the end of the trail,” as the maintained trail ends at a lake just beyond the low saddle between the foreground and the more distant peak. It is a wonderful place for wandering, as the open terrain is conducive to route finding — this is country where it is possible to say, “I think I’ll go there,” and then find a clear route to “there.”

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 | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Peak and Lake, Afternoon

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Peak and Lake, Afternoon
A Sierra Crest peak stands against the sky above a rocky basin and small lake

Peak and Lake, Afternoon. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A Sierra Crest peak stands against the sky above a rocky basin and small lake.

This photograph comes from almost a decade ago, when a group of friends ascended into this alpine region just east of the Sierra Nevada crest in the John Muir Wilderness, and area of rocky slabs, talus fields, lakes, and high peaks. We spent several days camped here, exploring nearby terrain. I hope to return again before long, which is perhaps why I resurrected this older photograph.

These areas just below and east of the peaks of the crest present steep and rugged country, with the highest peaks sometimes rising quickly to 7000 feet or more above the valley to the east of the range. This is an area of morning light, as the peaks and high valley generally face toward the rising sun. Late in the day, on the other hand, the sun generally drops behind the peaks well before sunset, leaving soft and shadowed light behind.

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 | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Lupine, Upper Sabrina Basin

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Lupine, Upper Sabrina Basin
A lush lupine-filled meadow along the outlet stream from Hungry Packer Lake near Picture Peak, high in the Sabrina Basin – John Muir Wilderness, Sierra Nevada, California.

A lush lupine-filled meadow along the outlet stream from Hungry Packer Lake near Picture Peak, high in the Sabrina Basin – John Muir Wilderness, Sierra Nevada, California.

We had hiked up through this meadow filled with plants and wildflowers earlier in the day while walking a circuit that included Hungry Packer Lake (beyond the saddle seen in the distance and below Picture Peak), Moonlight Lake, and Sailor Lake. At that time the early afternoon light had been far too harsh for photography, so I made plans to be back here early in the evening. I had hoped for some “golden hour” light, but I have to admit that I could see that a ridge to the right was going to cast a shadow here too early for that. Fortunately, the light on the peak came from the side such that it wasn’t as much brighter as it might otherwise have been, and it seemed like it might be possible to capture the huge dynamic range of this scene.

That last point brings up a difficult technical issue with this photograph – that tremendously large dynamic range. Although my eyes/brain could take in the full scene while standing there, no camera that I’d be carrying on the trail can possibly deal with this in a single shot. In the foreground the meadow plants were in early evening/late afternoon shade while the cloud above the peak was brightly lit by the direct sun. In the film days the only real option would have been to use a graduated neutral density (GND) filter to reduce the light from the sky. However, with digital capture we have another alternative – capturing several exposures of the scene optimized for the bright and dark areas and then combining them in post-production. That is precisely what I determined to do here.

In this case I made a main exposure that handled the middle of the dynamic range of the scene. I also made two more; one optimized to barely contain the brightest levels in the cloud and the second optimized to capture all of the details in the darker foreground meadow. The three versions of the scene were combined in post-processing to recreate something much closer to what I actually saw. (Yes, this was a complex photograph to realize!) in addition to using three exposures, I was also able to carefully customize the boundaries between them issuing masks – both of which would be impossible with a GND filter.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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