Tag Archives: tall

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

Tall Aspen Trees, Autumn

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Tall Aspen Trees, Autumn
A grove of tall aspen trees at peak autumn color, Eastern Sierra Nevada

Tall Aspen Trees, Autumn. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. October 9, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A grove of tall aspen trees at peak autumn color, Eastern Sierra Nevada

“The color isn’t very good this year,” someone said. “The color is changing late,” said someone else. “It changed to early,” said another. “The trees are still all green,” according to one observer. “Too many trees are bare already,” lamented one photographer. “The early snow turned lots of leaves black,” someone wrote. “It isn’t as good as it used to be,” reported another. After watching quite a few fall color seasons in the Sierra, I have observed that seasons do seem to have a bit of a personality. I’ve also heard (and spoken!) some generalizations about the development of color every year. It finally occurred to me this season that I often hear some variation on the same comments almost every season! Someone reports early color — or that it isn’t starting on schedule. Someone reports that the colors are better — or worse — that usual. But, aside from some differences likely attributable to weather variations, both long-term and short-term, over time things do seem to play out it fairly similar ways each year.

This year I spent — so far — about six days in the Sierra during fall color season. I feel like I pretty much hit the peak color over the past few days, with good color remaining at higher elevations and starting at the lower levels. If you haven’t gone yet and can get away in the next few days, I’m confident that you’ll be able to find some great eastern Sierra color, too. You will find a few groves have lost their leaves, but you’ll also find some in peak condition and probably even a few trees that are still green. I made this photograph on a very cold autumn morning — made a bit colder due to a miscalculation on an ice-coated rock while trying to cross a stream! — in a location where the morning sun had not yet cleared the top of a nearby tall ridge. The trees were picking up some soft reflected light that opened up the shadows and revealed details and colors that would not be a visible later on when the trees were in full sun.

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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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Building, Reflections

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Building, Reflections
Portions of downtown San Francisco reflected in the windows of a tall building

Building, Reflections. San Francisco, California. February 3, 3017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Portions of downtown San Francisco reflected in the windows of a tall building

This is an urban landscape photograph — while the subject is quite different from natural landscapes, I think of it is ways that are at least partially similar. Superficially, the urban world of towers and canyons presents some possibilities that are related to the mountains and valleys that I photograph in the non-urban world; I think about light and form in similar ways; and the ways I view each type of landscape can’t help but inform how I view the other.

It was only a few years ago when I understood something that intrigues me about glass-covered buildings like this one. (Yes, I’m slow sometimes…) We feel like we are looking at a building in a photograph like this, but a good part of what we actually see is not the building at all, but its form made visible by means of reflections of its surroundings, including other buildings and the sky. Here some skeletal forms help define its shape, perhaps more so than with some other buildings, but between those elements the windows themselves mostly reflect things that are not the building itself

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: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Aspen Forest

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Aspen Forest
Tall autumn aspen trees stretch across mountain landscape of Dixie National Forest

Aspen Forest. Dixie National Forest, Utah. October 5, 2012. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tall autumn aspen trees stretch across mountain landscape of Dixie National Forest

Generally speaking, aspen trees don’t grow like this much in my home state of California. On a two-week visit to Southern Utah’s beautiful wild and protect lands back in 2012 we entered the state from the west and drove up into the mountains around Brian Head and Cedar Breaks National Monument, where we spent a few early October days poking around, exploring, and discovering autumn color. (Utah aspen color comes a bit earlier than Sierra Nevada aspen color, and it was reaching the end of its run when we arrived.) One afternoon we simply decided, for no particular reason that I can recall, to investigate a gravel road that headed of to the south from a main route, and before long we ended up among the tall, straight trees of this beautiful aspen forest.

For all of its beauty, much of which has been preserved in national parks, monuments, and forests, there are political forces in Utah that want to destroy these beautiful places that belong to all Americans. Rather than saving and protecting the beauties of their state, they want to give the resources away for the short-term benefit of special interests who will use up the land and walk away. (Take a look at the legacy of the Uranium mining around Moab if you need example of a precedent.) There are many ways to fight back and work to protect these lands. One group doing good work on behalf of the Utah wild land resources is the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. They could use your support right about now.

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

Trees and Peninsula, Morning Light

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Trees and Peninsula, Morning Light
Trees and Peninsula, Morning Light

Trees and Peninsula, Morning Light. Yosemite National Park, California. September 5, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light shines on trees growing on a rocky lakeshore peninsula

On many mornings during our photography expedition into the northern Yosemite backcountry, various of us found ourselves photographing this lovely little rock peninsula, with its well-shaped trees. In fact, at times I found myself looking to photograph here… only to find that one of my friends was on the rocks and photographing these elements close up — and who could blame them. In fact, of the three exposures of the island I made within a few minutes on this morning before heading off around the lake, I think that there are other photographers in two of them! Fortunately, this one seemed to have the right combination of light and form.

The peninsula and its trees are only part of the story here. There are reflections, of course, though I composed the image to minimize them to some extent. And there is the beautiful backlight fringing the needs of the trees, an element that I find hard to resist. I’m also interested in the more distant and higher granite slopes in the far background, on which sparse and thinning trees ascend toward an unseen ridge. The same light that backlights the near trees, also backlights the trees on the granite slopes, and it also lights the atmospheric haze enough to soften the features of this mountain.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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.