Tag Archives: surface

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

Meltwater, Ice, and Cloud Reflections

March 22, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 5 Comments

Pools of water between sections of melting ice reflect evening clouds above Gaylor Lake, Yosemite National Park.

I continue to mine the vein of photographs from this early summer afternoon and evening visit to a lake not far from the Sierra crest at Tioga pass. In my defense I’ll point out that the conditions were variable and that I shot this subject in a number of different ways – close up views of ice and water, images that focus on the clouds, some that take in the more distant landscape of the surrounding ridges and peaks, others that focus on just the patterns of water and ice, and all shot as the light transitioned toward evening and was occasionally interrupted by clouds.

It is very unusual for me to get to visit a large lake with quite this combination of conditions. Sometimes in the early season I might encounter a lake that is still covered with ice, and later I often pass by lakes that are mostly clear but have snow banks and ice coming down to the shoreline. But in this case the lake was still covered completely in ice, but the ice was melting and creating pools of blue water on top of the remaining ice, and this water reflected the sky and passing clouds. I think the first things that might catch your attention in this photograph are the white areas of ice and the blue areas in between. But if you look a bit closer you see that the blue areas are anything but uniform. The shades of blue vary tremendously, sometimes approaching black in the shadows along the edges of the ice, spanning a range of shades in the open water, and then heading towards white in areas that reflect the clouds floating above the lake.

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

Ellery Lake

March 21, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early season morning light on Ellery Lake near Tioga Pass.

I made this photograph on the same early-season morning on which I made the vertical format photograph of the same scene that I recently posted. Ellery Lake is alongside highway 120, the “Tioga Pass Road,” just beyond the eastern boundary of the park and the Sierra crest. To be completely forthcoming, I made this photograph from the side of the road! (The many individuals who know this area well, and who have probably stopped to look at the same scene, already knew that…)

To briefly recap, the road here curves around the upper end of the lake above this small bay. Looking across the bay, the rocky edges of the lake are visible along with the steep talus slopes ascending to the peaks around Mt. Dana beyond. The spot has a natural beauty in terms of the forms of the landscape, but I think it is difficult to photograph as a whole – the light is the tricky thing. The earliest morning light is block by high peaks to the east and the late afternoon light goes quickly from sun to shade as the sun drops below ridges behind the camera position, and this light can be fairly flat since it comes from directly behind. This photograph was made in the morning, but not close to sunrise at all – it was two or three hours later. Even here the scene isn’t without technical challenges, especially from the dynamic range that spans from the shadows behind backlit rocks and trees to the very bright snow fields at upper right.

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

Morning, Ellery Lake

March 17, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light on Ellery Lake and surrounding mountains near Tioga Pass.

Yosemite National Park visitors who enter or leave the park via the Tioga Pass Road route are familiar with the sub-alpine lakes just east of the pass including Tioga Lake, Ellery Lake, and many smaller ponds. Ellery Lake – which is made a bit higher by a dam on its outlet stream – is the last lake before the drop-off into Lee Vining Canyon, and a place that people often stop during the summer months. Even during the very early and late season it is a popular place – in the early season right after the road opens you can often see back-country skiers on the steep slopes above the lake.

I rarely pass this particular cove near the upper end of the lake without stopping. However, I have also found it a tricky photographic subject! Very early light is blocked by the very tall ridge whose lower slopes are seen in the distance in this photograph. It is often quite windy. Late in the day the color of the light can be special, but it also tends to be almost directly behind the photographer and to leave some deep foreground shadows. There are other places like this – they seem like they should be photographic “slam dunks,” but they turn out to be more difficult than they appear. Or maybe it is just me! :-)

In any case, on this late June morning I had earlier finished photographing in the Mono Lake area and was heading back up towards Tuolumne Meadows. And, as always, as I drove around the curve above this cove I caught a view of the lake out of the corner of my eye and couldn’t resist stopping.

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

Purple Dawn, Mono Lake

March 15, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pastel shades of purple and blue just before dawn at Mono Lake.

Back at the end of 2010 I wrote that I was going through all of my 2010 raw files to look for images that I had passed over, as I do near the end of every year. Things got busy, I got distracted, and I only got about half way through the year’s files. Recently I have returned to the 2010 photographs to try to complete the task, and this is one of the photographs that I rediscovered as I resumed the search with images taken near the end of June.

This was my first real photographic trip to the Sierra during the summer season of 2010. I had made a brief trip up there, visiting Yosemite Valley and then crossing Tioga Pass, back in early June right about the time that the pass opened. However, on this trip I was able to spend several days in the high country and kicking around near Mono Lake. This can be a great time of the year up there since conditions range from what seems like late winter in the high country to real summer in places like Owens Valley and around Mono Lake.

On this morning I decided that I’d head down to Mono Lake well before dawn and see what I could turn up. I did not go to the iconic South Tufa area on this morning, thinking instead that I’d try for some different and longer views of the lake. (Later in the morning I traveled a good distance south of the lake on the less-used section of highway 120.) There were, obviously, clouds in the morning and they blocked the sunrise. However, the light glowed through and over and under and around them, and even though there was not direct light in very early morning image, the colors were quite something. The group of tufa towers at the lower left are offshore not far from the South Tufa area.

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