Tag Archives: season

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

East Carson River, Autumn

October 23, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Fall colors along the canyon of the East Carson River, California

Aspens are most certainly not the only sources of autumn color in the Sierra Nevada. There are many bush-like plants that can be quite colorful, such as the willows that may line high elevation creeks, and in the lower places along rivers cottonwood trees produce beautiful color just a bit later than the aspens.

This photograph was made along a section of the East Carson River not far from the tiny town of Markleeville in Alpine County, one of the least populated areas in the state. In this general area there is a transition from the higher country around the Sierra crest toward the high desert east of the range where rivers like this one end up. As I drove up the highway alongside the East Carson it was still early morning and shadows filled the bottom of the river canyon, where colors came from brush, cottonwoods, reflected blue sky and warmer colors reflected from higher canyon walls.

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

Fall Aspen Trees, Country Road

October 22, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A narrow gravel road approaches groves of brilliantly colored autumn aspen trees, Sierra Nevada

The eastern Sierra is full of fall color during the month of October, especially in areas where aspen trees grow. (The peak color is typically found sometime during the first two to three weeks of the month, though it varies depending upon a range of climate and local conditions.) Sierra aspens often have a different appearance from that which many expect if they have seen the big, tall, straight aspen groves in places like Colorado and Utah and similar. There are some groves like that in the Sierra, but they are unusual. Here the trees seem to have more varied form depending upon where they end up growing. In some places the trees are stout and thick but also quite twisted and gnarled. In others the trees are straight but very short. Along some creeks they grow so think that it is almost impossible to make your way inside the groves.

The trees in this photograph are perhaps typical, to the extent that it makes sense to speak of “typical” Sierra aspens. They grow at a relatively high elevation, on a ridge that is actually east of the true Sierra crest, and thus in a drier location. The trees are straight, but they are also not all that big. They are not part of a huge grove stretching across vast distances, but instead form a somewhat isolate grove — there are others nearby, but they are not connected.

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

Aspen Tree in Transition

October 20, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Aspen tree with leaves beginning to change from green to yellow

This fall I think I hit the timing just about perfect for aspen color, as I visited areas between Lake Tahoe in the north and Bishop Creek Canyon to the south. The colors were generally intense in the middle elevations, not completely gone yet at higher elevations, and beginning to come on strong down lower, where the aspens mix with cottonwoods and other foliage. By moving a bit north or south, or to higher/lower elevations, I was able to find just about every stage of the fall aspen color transition, from groves that were still green, though every phase of intermediate color, to bare trees that had already lost their leaves.

I was also reminded, yet again, that the specific spots you go to find Sierra fall color probably don’t matter as much as staying alert, thinking about the conditions, and watching for color wherever you happen to be. Yes, there are a few especially notable places. But it turns out that there are absolutely wonderful trees to photograph almost anywhere you travel at this time of year. This tree is perhaps a case in point. I was, in fact, in one of the prime aspen color areas near Lake Tahoe. However, on this evening, when the sun was dropping behind ridges and the light was softening, I simply happened to pull over at a wide spot in the road near some creek. I got out of my car to look at the trees, which were much like the trees filling the rest of this long valley, and it happened that one of them exposed the skeleton of its branch system against a background of mostly green leaves that were just starting to change. I’m quite certain that it would be nearly impossible for me to find this particular tree again — but why would I? It is just one of the uncountable trees in the range, and everywhere among them there are beauties to be photographed.

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

Bare Trees, Wall of Leaves

October 17, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A row of bare aspen trees stands in front of a grove of colorful aspens

This photograph was almost an afterthought at the end of an evening of shooting up high in an east-side Sierra canyon where many of the trees had lost their leaves, and the rest were at the brilliantly colorful phase that comes right before the leaves fall. When I came up the canyon I took a little gravel side road that passes through another grove of small but interesting trees before heading on up to the end of the road “just because it was there.” This is not an obvious photographic spot, since the trees are not large and because it can be difficult to find the right backgrounds.

There is something special about soft, evening light on fall foliage, and especially on aspens. It can produce a very intense quality of color, and the soft light shines into shadows and lowers contrast. As I moved slowly up this small roadway I could see that there was a band of quite colorful trees along the banks for the creek, and that between me and this color there was a thinner line of trees that had already lost their leaves. This let the stark trunks and branches of these trees stand out against the wall of color from the trees that still hadn’t lost their leaves.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: season

East Carson River, Autumn

Fall Aspen Trees, Country Road

Aspen Tree in Transition

Bare Trees, Wall of Leaves

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