Tag Archives: summit

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

Aspens and Autumn Snow

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Aspens and Autumn Snow
Early autumn snow and aspens changing color in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Aspens and Autumn Snow. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early autumn snow and aspens changing color in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Yesterday I was out on one of my regular urban walks, and as I crossed over a local creek on a bridge I noticed a significant number of yellow leaves on trees and on the ground. To be sure, there are still far more green leaves, and the actual full-on arrival of autumn color is many weeks away. (Here in California it is common to raise our expectations of fall’s imminent arrival in early September… only to realize once again that we have a month and a half of mostly warm weather ahead of us.) But it is clear that the seasons are in transition and that autumn is coming.

Scenes like the one on this photograph are still a good month away at best. This small grove of aspens grows in an area of what is more or less high desert along the eastern edge of the range. I fondly recall this day and many others like it, traveling along the base of these mountains, looking for aspen color, and seeing snow showers above the crest and signifying the approach of winter.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Sunrise, Panamint Mountains

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Sunrise, Panamint Mountains
Sunrise light on teh summit of the Panamint Mountains, Death Valley National Park

Sunrise, Panamint Mountains. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sunrise light on the summit of the Panamint Mountains, Death Valley National Park.

This photograph comes from the same spectacular early morning that produced another one that I shared a few days ago. I made this photograph a few minutes later as the first direct dawn sunlight began to strike the peaks and ridges of the Panamint Mountains in Death Valley National Park. This morning was a prime example of the rapid and often surprising transitions that occur at the beginning and ending of the day. When I arrived here well before dawn I could tell it was cloudy, but I could imagine a sunrise ranging from gray and dim to what actually happened. And once the process began and the good light appeared, it was a matter of working quickly over a short period before the light again became more mundane.

The experience of making this photograph (and others in the set from that morning) is also a reminder that in order to experience exceptional conditions you really need to be out there a lot. I’ve been to this location many times, including others when the conditions ranged between “blah” and “lovely, but I’ve seen this before.” If you just go once, you have no idea what you’ll encounter. But if you keep going back, even when you aren’t sure how it will turn out, the odds are that eventually you will encounter one of the outlier spectacular moments.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Last Light And Sunset Clouds

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Last Light And Sunset Clouds
Colorful sunset clouds as the last light touches the summits of the Sierra Nevada crest

Last Light And Sunset Clouds. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Colorful sunset clouds as the last light touches the summits of the Sierra Nevada crest.

I think of this as the “night of miracle light.” Sierra Nevada folks know that the predominant condition in the summer months is clear, blue skies… which many people regard as a virtue but which photographers often lament. It probably seems very strange to non-photographers to hear us exclaim things like, “Darn! I had seven days of boring perfect blue skies!” We want some clouds! The come from time to time, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

During our weeklong stay in the Eastern Sierra high country we also had mostly blue sky weather. We did get a bit of rain on the day we hiked in and, surprisingly, again on the day we hiked out. But in between, with one notable exception, the weather was what normal people might call “perfect.” But then, there was this evening, the final one of the trip. Very late in the day, we began to see lovely, puffy clouds starting to assemble above our valley and especially above the higher peaks the surrounded the upper end at the Sierra crest. At sunset the clouds became spectacularly beautiful as they were illuminated by sunset light coming from below and to the west. All of us stopped what we were doing and assembled in a group near our camp to watch this lovely luminous benediction to our trip.

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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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, Photographs: Yosemite

Valley and Ridge, Evening

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Valley and Ridge, Evening
Early evening light on forest covered valley leading to rocky ridge, Yosemite National Park

Valley and Ridge, Evening. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early evening light on forest covered valley leading to rocky ridge, Yosemite National Park.

Earlier this month I spent a few days in the Tuolumne Meadows high country of Yosemite National Park, generally along the Tioga Pass Road and with hiking excursions outwards from there. My main goal on this trip was actually the hiking, but there was time for photography, too, of course! On this evening I went up to the meadows near the pass just inside the park boundaries and took some time to wander and make photographs.

Here I was attracted by the massive peak, with its reddish rock indicative of old materials that lay above the granite foundation of the range, along with the evening light and the overlapping shapes of lower, forest covered hills and the dark row of trees just beyond the meadow. In addition, I’ve hiked out into that area many times, and this view evokes memories of many of those adventures.

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.