Tag Archives: shoreline

Equipment, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Lake and Shoreline, Evening

December 11, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening light comes to a remote alpine lake in the Sierra Nevada backcountry.

I made this photograph from more or less our campsite on a backpacking trip to this remote area of the upper Kern River drainage in the southern Sierra Nevada back in 2010. It was a trip that combined the familiar and the new, that took me to a spot that I had first thought of visiting decades before, and which provided some surprises. The first few days of the trip covered familiar ground over a couple of high passes and dropped us into the upper Kern on the John Muir Trail. At this point we left the JMT and followed less traveled routes for the remainder of our visit.

Our first departure from the JMT was to head south of northwest into the upper Kern’s more remote areas. We were not so far out on the fringe that there were no trails, but the trails were clearly not well used and we saw very few people. The area is not easy to get to nor is it really on the route between other major points, so those that go there pretty much just go there. Eventually we worked our way over towards the foot of the Great Western Divide, to an area full of intimate meadow/rock landscapes and small lakes. Here we found a beautiful campsite that gave no hints that it had been occupied before. I’m sure it had been, but it is unusual to find such a place in the Sierra that is visited so infrequently that there are not obvious signs of the previous visitors. We set up camp, engaged in warfare with marauding mosquitos, wandered about a bit, and settled in to watch the day come to an end.

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, Photographs: Yosemite

Quiet Shoreline, Morning

December 8, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A quiet morning shoreline at a subalpine lake, Yosemite National Park

This is a “quiet” photograph — no warm golden hour coloration, no grand vista, no motion. This is a very early morning scene. The sun has risen, but is still behind higher ridges to the east, so the shoreline is in shadow. The water is almost completely still, and although the photograph can’s show this, it is very quiet.

This is a beautiful time of day in the high country. The cold air makes fingers numb and encourages one to look for those first beams of warm light that will soon come over the ridge. The place itself is quiet, and that quiet seems to encourage me to move quietly as well, as I start my search for photographic subjects.

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

Crystal Bay, Lake Tahoe

November 9, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

My annual hunt for aspen color took me to the Lake Tahoe area in early October. I realized that although I’ve gone to Tahoe for many years that I have very few photographs of the area. So often Tahoe has been a place to go for other purposes, such as skiing or a cabin stay, etc. And, frankly, Lake Tahoe is very busy and, in many ways, an urbanized place — so my nature and wilderness instincts are often a bit frustrated there. But it is a beautiful lake, and I saw more of that when I went there with photographic intentions.

The underlying reason this time has to do with a project related to fall color in the mountains of California. I’ve covered many other Sierra fall color areas, but I needed more material from the Tahoe area. So I spent an evening, a full day, and part of a morning doing some exploring. The “full day” began with a drive to the Carson City, Nevada and then north towards Reno and back toward Tahoe via Mount Rose. There were quite a few aspens along this part of the drive, but I couldn’t stop much due to road construction. Then I did something I’ve done a number of times before — I circumnavigated the lake, paying special attention to fall color. I realized that there is quite a lot of it, even if much of the color is in areas filled with cabins and resorts. This photograph overlooks the northeast part of the lake from the roadway descending from Mt. Rose.

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.

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

Morning Haze and Light, Shoreline Trees

October 31, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Forest trees at the edge of a Sierra Nevada subalpine lake in morning light, Yosemite National Park

This is another photograph from that magical first day of shooting at a location that I would stay at for nearly a full week. As I wrote previously, the magic of this first morning comes from many things. Recognition is one of them — the experience of experiencing again the familiar elements of the Sierra backcountry that I have known for so many years: the sounds of gentle wind and water lapping at the end of the lake, the stillness of the morning air, that beautiful light coming over a ridge and striking trees and rocks from behind, the bits of detritus along the shoreline. A sense of expectation is another — the focus on seeing what is new at this place, the almost certain knowledge that I will discover new and unexpected things during the upcoming days.

On this morning I walked down to this lake for the first time. (I had arrived so late the previous day — after sunset, actually — that I had not even gone to the shoreline.) I began to circle around its west side slowly, first on a trail through flat terrain near where we camped, and then on rockier areas that forced me to ascend above the water a bit. All the time I was looking for subjects and compositions — though it would take a few more days before I fully fell into the ideal mode of seeing. I love backlight and I live juxtapositions of subjects, and I was attracted to the fringe of morning light on the branches of the trees at left and on the grasses below, and to how they contrasted with the deeply shaded area beyond.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: shoreline

Lake and Shoreline, Evening

Quiet Shoreline, Morning

Crystal Bay, Lake Tahoe

Morning Haze and Light, Shoreline Trees

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