Tag Archives: sky

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspens, Earth Shadow, Morning

November 29, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

On a cold and clear morning in mid-September earlier this year I left my camp in the Sierra and headed east, past Mono Lake and on out into the mountains east of the Sierra Nevada and east of US 395. I did not have a specific goal in mind, but I thought I would do a bit of early season aspen color reconnaissance in preparation for planned visits to photograph fall color a few weeks later. I gradually worked my way further out from the Sierra, stopping from time to time and poking around the ends of various gravel roads. Finally I found one that looked promising and took it.

I knew that I had previously seen aspens atop ridges in the general area of this road, and I had made a note to come back this way in the fall. I don’t typically expect to see much fall color by mid-September in the Sierra, but I soon found quite a bit of it — a whole mountain top was covered with small trees that were beginning to turn colors almost uniformly. I took a short spur road to an overlook and parked — from here there was an almost unobstructed view of a big section of the Sierra crest. It was cold enough to let me know that autumn wasn’t far away as I waited for the sun, beginning to photograph in that lovely predawn period of warm colors when the earth’s shadow can be seen in the darkened atmosphere just above the horizon.

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.

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

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Still Water, Clouds

November 14, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A few scattered clouds are reflected in the surface of Mono Lake on a windless day

As I have returned to Mono Lake over the years, my orientation to the place has changed. (I guess that is a sort of general theme with me, now that I think of it — repeated visits to a familiar place over long periods of time are rewarded with a continually evolving knowledge of the place.) First it is just a very big lake. They one usually discovers tufa towers, followed perhaps by birds. My concept of the place has now come to center on quiet immensity, with open sky above, perhaps interrupted by the sounds of birds.

Mono Lake is often a windy place, but at times, especially early in the day, the winds can die down or even stop, and the stillness becomes palpable. On this day I traveled out to a shoreline area I had not visited before, and one that is not particularly popular or well-known. I parked and walked down a slope towards the water, where I found its surface almost still and reflecting the shapes of a few clouds to the north.

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: Italy

Lamp, Cloud, Stone Walls

August 24, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Midday light along the narrow road through Castello di Ama, Italy

While visiting a vineyard/winery here I learned some things I would not have expected about this part of Italy. I’m used to California’s wine country, especially the areas in northern California where a lot of the vineyards seem to be either on hillsides of quite often in flat river valleys. Here, at least among the vineyards around the area where I made this photograph, the vineyards are on relatively steep hillsides and, as I discovered, on soil that is more rock than dirt. There was a place where the path was well below the level of the soil surface and a section of the rock wall had been removed to show the earth down perhaps 6-8 feet deep… and it was almost entirely rock.

Speaking of these paths, I made this photograph along an old, narrow, winding “road” between the buildings of a now-isolated village. It was midday, when the light becomes much brighter and sharper, though still with that bit of softness that seems to be the norm here. The high sun angle and bright light cast a strong shadow across the wall at the left and part of the part, while a few scattered clouds floated by overhead.

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Mono Lake, Sky and Mountains

July 23, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Mono Lake, shoreline, and mountains to the east.

The landscape of the Mono Lake Basin offers tremendous diversity — everything from intimate scenes of tufas and other features, to grand landscapes stretching off far into the distance. It is even a place to photograph wildlife in the context of landscape. In the right conditions the water becomes a subtle and varied element of the landscape, too.

I recently visited here early on a summer morning. I was staying back up in the Yosemite Sierra, but I decided to drive down for one morning of “east side” photography, including the lake and then some areas further south and east. At first I wasn’t too excited by the “empty” blue sky, but when I saw it as a counterpoint to the textured blue of the lake’s water I thought it deserved a photograph.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sky

Aspens, Earth Shadow, Morning

Still Water, Clouds

Mono Lake, Sky and Mountains

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