Tag Archives: sunrise

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

Glacier Point and Ground Fog in Ahwahnee Meadow, Autumn

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Glacier Point and Ground Fog in Ahwahnee Meadow, Autumn
Glacier Point and Ground Fog in Ahwahnee Meadow, Autumn

Glacier Point and Ground Fog in Ahwahnee Meadow, Autumn. Yosemite Valley, California. October 31, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Thin morning ground fog floats above the dry autumn grasses of Ahwahnee Meadow below the granite cliffs of Glacier Point, Yosemite Valley.

During the cooler and wetter months of the year, ground fog often forms in the meadows of Yosemite Valley. Ahwahnee Meadow is one of the places I like to photograph these conditions, and since this was the morning after a damp and rainy day, I arrived here very early in anticipation of conditions that might produce the fog. It was very cold when I arrived, certainly below freezing by at least a few degrees. At first the fog was much denser and a bit deeper. I have photographs from this earlier pre-dawn period when a herd of deer passed through the meadow. Eventually, as the sun rose high enough that the light beams began to clear the mountains to the east of the Valley, the first light began to strike the upper slopes and walls of Glacier Point. As this happened and the air began to move and the temperature stopped dropping, the fog began to thin. This photograph was made shortly before the fog actually dissipated completely, and thin streamers of mist are broken up by clearer areas.

I have to admit that I do not know what the foreground plant is. (Hint: I won’t mind even a tiny bit if someone wants to write and tell me! :-) Cottony tufts are found at the top of long stems, growing out of odd shaped pods. I shot this with a very wide angle lens so that I could include some of this foreground foliage and the fill width of Glacier Point.

On a technical note, this image incorporates a blend of two exposures. Portions of the sky at the left side of the frame were very bright, while much of the rest of the scene was in shade and a lot darker. Almost the entire frame is from the 1/15 second exposure, but I have manually blended in a bit of the 1/40 second exposure in the area of cloudy sky at upper left in order to retain a bit of detail there. Also, though it should be obvious, this was shot with an ultra-wide angle lens – a 17mm focal length on a full frame DSLR. If you are at all familiar with this location in the Valley you will recognize that this is a bit of an unusual view.

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

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Sunrise, Piute Crags

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Autumn Sunrise, Piute Crags
Autumn Sunrise, Piute Crags

Autumn Sunrise, Piute Crags. Sierra Nevada, California. October 2, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Autumn morning light on Piute Crags, reflected in the shoreline waters of a Sierra Nevada lake.

I made a lot of photographs during the past few months, traveling to the Sierra and a number of other places frequently. I often go through the photographs from the most recent shoot and post images soon after, but when I’m on to the next adventure fairly quickly I don’t always have time to get to everything in one batch before I shoot the next one. Inevitably, some images get “left behind.” Things have slowed down just a bit, and now I’m finding time to go back through some of that earlier work and pull out a few more images that I like. This is one of them.

Folks who photograph in the eastern Sierra will likely recognize this location. The long, rugged ridge of Piute Crags is striking, especially in the morning light, more so in the fall when the aspens change color, and double-especially on such a fall morning when clouds are moving in and out of the scene. I’m not going to say much more about the location beyond telling a little story. As I made this photograph there were perhaps 50 photographers set up more or less tripod-to-tripod a ways away shooting the same general subject from the place where almost everyone shoots. Their location is, indeed, a beautiful spot and I’ve shot there myself. (Heck, I shot there later on this same trip, though at a time of day when the workshops had gone elsewhere.) But there is more than one way to photograph a scene, and with a bit of thought and some wandering around it is usually possible to find a perspective that isn’t quite the same as the familiar one.

(If you know where I stood, please resist the temptation to say too much. This precise spot could not withstand the stress of dozens of photographers. Thanks!)

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

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

First Light Above the Buttermilks, Autumn Storm

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First Light Above the Buttermilks, Autumn Storm
First Light Above the Buttermilks, Autumn Storm

First Light Above the Buttermilks, Autumn Storm. Eastern Sierra, Owens Valley, California. October 3, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A faint rainbow briefly glows in dawn light on the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada above the Buttermilks as an autumn storm builds.

Since I wrote previously about acting on a hunch to be in this spot in time to catch a few minutes of dawn light, I won’t recount the whole thing here – though I would like to describe the phenomenon a bit more and perhaps make a point or two about light and opportunities.

The photograph is of the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada above Bishop, California and was made on an early autumn morning of a day that brought one of the first winter-like storms of the season. I found myself in this spot (as described at the link) for the very few minutes during which this light was present – and afterwards the light was simply gone and the rest of the day was overcast and rainy. The circumstances have me thinking about a few things about light and “being there” at the right moment.

Sometimes, even on a “poor light day” – though I like overcast conditions! – there can be a few brief moments of exceptional light. Catching them involves some combination of anticipating that these moments might occur, being there, and – let’s admit it! – dumb luck. In this case, all three were at work. I did not know that this light would occur, but I knew that the conditions offered a possibility. A clearing in the clouds along the eastern horizon allowed a horizontal beam of light to briefly hit the mountains right at dawn. It began by striking the clouds above the Sierra crest, soon hit the highest peaks, moved across the face of the range, and within minutes the show ended with light on the high desert. The band was so narrow that only one of these subjects was generally illuminated at a time – and the whole thing couldn’t have lasted more than five or ten minutes.

That description might make it sound like I’m saying that I’m just plain great at predicting such things and planning to be there. Not quite! If you had asked me a few minutes earlier, when I made the spontaneous decision to abandon my previous plans and high-tail it out to this spot, what the odds were that I’d see light like this I might have estimated them at perhaps 10% or less. In other words, if I repeated this little adventure 10 times, I’d guess that I’d fail to see light like this nine out of ten times. However, if I only go for “sure bets” (which I’ll take when I can get them!) I know that I’ll miss lots of special conditions that are not subject to prediction.

Which brings up the subject of luck. I often read that one should be able to know in advance what the photograph will look like, and that careful and full preparation will lead to good photographs. Well, sort of, but maybe not quite in the way that some imply. (There is an element of “preparation” in all of this that I’ll write about eventually, but that is a different thing.) Frankly, these subjects are too complex and too fleeting and too unpredictable to be subject to that sort of careful and precise planning in any sort of consistently useful way. The photographer cannot make that small band of open sky appear along the horizon on an autumn morning when a storm is building along the crest – but if everything goes right a photographer might be there at the right moment, prepared to make a photograph of it.

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

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Sunrise Rainbow and Virga Above the Buttermilks

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Sunrise Rainbow and Virga Above the Buttermilks
Sunrise Rainbow and Virga Above the Buttermilks

Sunrise Rainbow and Virga Above the Buttermilks. Sierra Nevada, California. October 3, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Brief sunrise light produces a rainbow and virga over the Buttermilks in the eastern Sierra Nevada above Bishop, California.

I have a story to tell about this photograph and how it came about. I’ve been in the Buttermilks — the rounded hills between Bishop, California and the actual Sierra Nevada — on a number of previous occasions. I’ve photographed there in the early morning when the first light hits these hills and the peaks of the Sierra, and I have some potential images filed away in my mind, waiting for a time when the light is right. I also know the Sierra well enough – though certainly not completely nor perfectly! – that I can pick up on developing conditions that might not apparent to someone less familiar with the range.

On this early October morning I was camped up in the Bishop Creek drainage. The forecast was for rain and wind and, sure enough, during the night the wind picked up and it began to rain. I woke before dawn and at the first light it was apparent that it would be overcast. This is not necessarily a bad thing for photographing fall color, but it can mean that subjects that would otherwise work at dawn might need to wait. I was thinking about how to modify my aspen photography plans when I noticed a bit of incipient color in the still-dim clouds, and it occurred to me that a special set of conditions might occur. Although I couldn’t see to the east from this campground, I know that sometimes clouds above the Sierra end a ways to the east over or beyond the White Mountains, and when this happens there is a narrow band of clear sky right above the horizon — and if everything works out just right a strip of dawn light shines through this gap, first hitting the clouds and then working its way down from the peaks to the lower foothills before quickly disappearing and leaving very bland light.

No sure thing at all, but I decided to dash down the road (past the steady stream of aspen photographers streaming up the road!) and see if I could get to the Buttermilks in time. I left the main road and headed up a side road that I know, somewhat resenting a (very reasonable!) 25mph speed limit near some roadside residences as I began to see the clouds above the crest starting to light up. As I hit the last section of gravel road the sky began to glow and I sped up, heading for a specific spot where I had photographed this scene before. With seconds I saw the light pick out a band of virga (rain that does not reach the ground) and a rainbow began to form in front of the eastern escarpment as I arrived at the hilltop where I planned to shoot. I quickly set up my tripod and mounted the 70-200mm lens (which I already knew would be the right one for this shot) and literally ran up a nearby knoll which I knew would put the foreground hill in a decent place in the composition. I was ready just as the soft light hit the foreground and I made this photograph. Within a minute the rainbow as gone!

Sometimes you just get lucky…

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

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