Tag Archives: travel

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

Autumn Aspens, Sage Brush Country

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Autumn Aspens, Sage Brush Country
A sage brush country grove of colorful autumn aspen trees in back-light, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Autumn Aspens, Sage Brush Country. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A sage brush country grove of colorful autumn aspen trees in back-light, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Wildfire smoke has posed challenges to Californians and those in other western states in recent years, and the current historic drought in the state has produced even more widespread and often large fires. We have come to live with smoke levels that are occasionally very unhealthy and almost always aesthetically displeasing. Almost every late-summer or autumn visit to the Sierra during the past two seasons has been affected, and on several occasions I have had to cut trips short as a result.

On this month’s brief visit to the eastern Sierra things were a bit better in the Sonora Pass area and a bit south, but the conditions deteriorated quickly starting just north of Mono Lake. Photographically speaking, this creates some rather serious challenges, especially when smoke covers (and discolors the atmosphere of) the larger landscape. There are some options — black and white can often work in such conditions or one can focus on closer subjects, composting to eliminate the longer views. The latter is what I did in this photograph of grove of small aspens growing in a shallow valley in sagebrush-covered hills, where back-light intensified the colors of the fall foliage.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

East Slope Aspens, Autumn

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East Slope Aspens, Autumn
A large grove of autumn aspen trees extends up the lower reaches of the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

East Slope Aspens, Autumn. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A large grove of autumn aspen trees extends up the lower reaches of the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Many of the autumn aspen photographs that we see feature extensive groves tall, straight trees with beautiful white trunks, and sometimes the groves seem to stretch across entire mountains. For the most part, those are not Sierra Nevada aspens! While you can find some similar examples in the Sierra if you look around a lot, most of “our” trees tend to be a bit smaller, and they are often a bit more twisted and gnarly. Some, in fact, are downright small. If you are used to seeing those straight and tall groves… the Sierra may teach you to appreciate different sorts of trees.

However in a few places there are some rather large groves. They frequently show up in places where the aspens have little competition from conifer forest trees — on the tops of some ridges and in some of the sagebrush high country on the eastern flank of the range. This scene is an example of the latter, and the interlocking groves spread across the rise of these hills toward the eastern side of the Sierra in terrain that is otherwise largely open and dry.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Mono Basin, Morning

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Mono Basin, Morning
A view of Mono Lake, Mono Basin, and surrounding peaks from the base of the Sierra Nevada.

Mono Basin, Morning. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A view of Mono Lake, Mono Basin, and surrounding peaks from the base of the Sierra Nevada.

This photograph is another long view of Mono Basin and Mono Lake, with Paoha Island centered in the frame. Paoha Island is, like its companion Negit Island, the product of volcanic activity where a long string of volcanic sites intersects the lake. You can find lots of other volcanic cones on this like both north and south of Mono, including the much taller and older Mono Craters just to the south.

When I first came to Mono Lake and photographed it many years ago, I typically tried to get very close to the edge of the lake, for example photographing tufa formations along its edge. But over the years I’ve become more fascinated by the longer views that take in the vast space in and above the Mono Basin. To really see this it helps to find an elevated location, and there are plenty of them to see if you poke around a bit in and around the Basin. This photograph was made near the base of the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada, and it looks across the lake and beyond to eastern mountains that belong to Nevada’s basin and range terrain.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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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: Sierra Nevada

East Slope Aspen Grove

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East Slope Aspen Grove
Fall colors in an aspen grove along the east slope of the Sierra Nevada.

East Slope Aspen Grove. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Fall colors in an aspen grove along the east slope of the Sierra Nevada.

I hope you’ll pardon me for reverting to the Eastern Sierra fall color theme over the next few weeks. It is that time of year again. (For those of you seeing this photograph and wondering if you just missed this year’s color — this photograph comes from a pervious year.) While I have not been up there recently (soon, I hope!) to see how things are coming along, I’ve heard rumors of folks seeing early color more or less on schedule. We’re still roughly two weeks from what I think of as the start of the core aspen color season, starting in early October and generally lasting through the third week or so.

This scene holds a lot of what I look for in the Eastern Sierra in the fall. There are several sub-groves of aspens running across the scene — you can see them by their different phases in the color transition. Here we also see something that you don’t see everywhere in the Sierra, namely rather tall and straight trees. There is a bit of color from some non-aspen brush in the foreground, in the case of this location because it is at the edge of high sage brush country.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.