Tag Archives: sunset

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

Trees and Boulder, Sunset

August 1, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A large boulder against the base of lodgepole pines at sunset in Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park.

After finishing up an earlier evening shoot in a place that might be described as a mosquito-infested hell, but a very beautiful one, I left that location with as much haste as I could muster. Having done so, I found myself with a bit of extra time just as the final light of the day approached. Since I wasn’t too far away, I headed towards Tuolumne Meadows, figuring that I might just catch the last light that slants across the length of the meadow right below sunset.

When I arrived there I had very little time to carefully consider where and what I might shoot since the light was within minutes of disappearing for the day. So as I drove along the road through past the meadow, I kept my eyes open for any trees or boulders that might be catching this final light. As luck would have it, as I passed the RV holding tank dumping station – pretty rustic, no? – I saw this combination of lodgepole pine and boulders against the background of the sunlit trees across the meadow on the other side of the river and the ascending slopes beyond. I quickly pulled over, got out the tripod and camera, and made a few exposures here as the last light left the tree.

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

Alpenglow, Trees, and Granite

July 22, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 9 Comments

This is one of my favorite locations in the Yosemite back-country and, in fact, in the entire Sierra Nevada range. This beautiful sub-alpine basis contains three lovely lakes and is surrounded by varied terrain that includes distant views, peaks and ridges towering above, lodgepole pine forests, meadows small and large, and an open view to the west that often provides stunning light late in the day.

As is usually the case, I was camped at the of the three lakes – this time for several days of photography – and I had headed to the upper lake late in the day to do some evening photography. I have photographed there quite a few times, but I still haven’t come close to exhausting the photographic potential of the place. On this evening I knew that I wanted to be ready to photograph the golden hour light, but I was also interested in the smaller groups of trees that grow among the granite boulders and I wanted to see what might develop as alpenglow struck the glacial slopes above the lake.

There is a small, fun twist to the story of this visit. I took a semi-cross-country route to the upper lake from my camp at the lower lake, and because I knew that I’d be returning alone in deep twilight or after dark, on the hike up I was concentrating intensely on fixing a series of landmarks in my mind for the return hike. I was so single-minded about this that I made it all the way to the lake and my first intended subject (a small shoreline tree) without looking around much. It was only a moment after arriving that I got out of focus-on-the-route mode and looked around. I had walked right past the campsite of a couple of photographers without even seeing them, much less saying “hi.” Turns out that the photographers were John Sexton and Anne Larsen. After exchanging greetings and conversation, I went about my business of shooting along the edge of the lake. (If I recall correctly, John was shooting nearby as I made this exposure.)

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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. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

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

Trees and Sunset Sky, Olmsted Point

July 7, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Trees growing on granite silhouetted against a colorful sunset sky at Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park.

This astonishing, magical light occurred just at and right after sunset on the evening of June 18, the day that Tioga Pass finally opened for the 2011 summer season. I earlier posted a vertical format photograph of much the same scene, though with slightly different light – the other photograph was made about a minute after this one and the conditions were changing very rapidly.

The photograph was made from the popular Olmsted Point overlook along the Tioga Pass Road (highway 120), with its well-known view of subalpine Tenaya Lake. Since I have recounted the story of this light in some detail in an earlier post, I’ll keep this description somewhat short, but here is the genera outline. Earlier in the evening I had come here to try to photograph Mount Conness with a long lens. Initially the light was very unpromising, but I observed some things that suggested the possibility of sunset light so I stuck around. Just before sunset, as the sun dropped near the horizon to the west, the light came from below to illuminate the thin, high clouds and produce an amazing color show.

To make the series of photographs of these trees I simply pivoted my tripod around from the direction it had been pointing, towards Mount Conness. The trees are somewhat sparse here since the granite domes and slabs cannot support many of them. The speed of light and color transition was remarkable. At one or more points, as the clouds picked up the sunset glow, the brightness of the light suddenly increased noticeably. The brightest color moved across the sky from east to west, and here the color was just beginning to diminish ever so slightly overhead as it continues to intensify to the west and closer to the horizon.

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

Last Light, Mount Conness

July 6, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

The final evening alpenglow illuminates the summit ridge of Mount Conness and the west face of Medlicott Dome in the Yosemite National Park high country.

This will be my final photograph of Mount Conness from the evening of June 18, the day that Tioga Pass Road opened this year and the day of one of the most spectacular Yosemite high country sunsets in recent memory. It will be the final both in the sense that I think I’ve now shared the best of the group of images of this sunset and in the sense that it was literally my final exposure of the evening.

The short back-story is that what started out as a fairly unimpressive evening (at least in the photographic sense) transformed over a short period into something extraordinary as the sun dropped to the horizon west of the Sierra and illuminated the clouds from below, creating rare and very special alpenglow conditions over a wide area of the Sierra. (During the week that followed quite a few people commented on this amazing light, which they had witnessed from locations as distant as Mono Lake on the east side and the Central Valley to the west.)

When I made this photograph the show was coming to an end. At this point the sun had already set a few minutes earlier – the exposure was made around 8:45 p.m. – and the light was low enough to require a six-second exposure. While it may seem like Mount Conness (the tallest peak near the left on the skyline) and other features are receiving direct sunlight, this is actually the remaining post-sunset glow in the western sky.

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