Tag Archives: three

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

Three Trees And A Valley

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Three Trees And A Valley
“Three Trees And A Valley” — Three autumn trees and Yosemite Valley cliffs.

This photograph has been in the queue for months as I worked on other subjects, and before that it languished in my raw file archive for a couple of years. I rediscovered it during a review of past season’s fall color photographs last year. There is a bit of fall color in the leaves of these trees, but it may be subtle.

After photographing in Yosemite Valley for decades, I am less inclined to re-photograph the big icons. I’ll do so in exceptional conditions, but I’m more interested in poking around odd corners of the valley and looking for new perspectives. This location is a bit tricky — several years ago it was identified as being an area prone to rockfall — but I’m attracted to several features of this view. The foreground trees don’t quite block the view, and beyond them a large meadow allows plentiful light. Across the valley are steep cliffs, in including some with cascades and small waterfalls.

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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: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Three Trees and Pasture

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Three Trees and Pasture
“Three Trees and Pasture” — Three dormant trees in a newly-green Central Valley pasture.

A band of photographers and friends has met in a semi-wild place every New Year’s Day for about a decade. We get join welcome tothe new year, share stories, and photograph birds and the landscape. Until this year we had a streak of good weather New Year’s Days, but we were due for bad weather — and we got it! It wasn’t exactly horrible, but it was rather wet and gray… except for a few moments when the clouds parted enough to allow some light.

These three bare trees are old friends of mine. I’ve visited and photographed them for years. This time I was intrigued by the light on more distant trees, the ominous skies, and the newly green pasture. That winter green is a characteristic of much of California. it must almost seem to those from other places that our seasons are backwards — brown and dry in the summer and lush and green in the middle of winter.

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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: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Morning, Forest at Meadow’s Edge

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Morning, Forest at Meadow's Edge
“Morning, Forest at Meadow’s Edge” — Three generations of lodgepole pine forest at the edge of a Sierra Nevada meadow.

From the time I first visited Tuolumne Meadows (decades ago, as a child) I remember hearing that the meadows were being gradually overtaken by the forests. (I later learned that the story is not quite that simple.) This stuck with me, and I’ve always been intrigued by the boundaries between meadow and forest. This photograph shows three age groupings of pines next to this meadow — the three big and old trees left of center, a dense stand of younger tall trees at the right, and a thick line of “baby trees” extending from the left edge beyond the three big trees.

This was a special morning at Tuolumne. It was the first day of July, in a year when the campground would not open for another month. Park entrance restrictions further limited the number of visitors. I camped just outside the park and was able to enter before dawn. I had the landscape almost entirely to myself as the sun rose and light fog cleared from the meadow.

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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: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Sandstone Formations, Earlry Morning Light

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Sandstone Formations, Earlry Morning Light
“Sandstone Formations, Early Morning Light” — Early morning light on sandstone formations at Arches National Park.

Recently I have been revisiting photographs from a decade ago, including a couple of lengthy trips to Utah in the spring and fall seasons. On one we visited Arches National Park — believe it or not, my first visit. I felt like I sort of knew the place, having read Edward Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire” a few times, but the reality of this landscape astounded me. My wife, Patricia Emerson Mitchell, likes to tell a story about me more or less losing it when I first saw those sandstone formations!

On this morning we entered the park very early, well before sunrise. I had been photographing for some time when I made this photograph. The sun had recently risen, but the light still was warm, and the effect on the red rock formations was striking. This is an example of my long-lens landscape photographs. Some people imagine that landscape photography must be done with wide and normal focal length lenses, but I often like to use long focal lengths to limit my view to small sections of the larger landscape

Leave a comment or question using the form. (If you are reading this on the home page, click the article title to see the full article and the comment form.

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.