Tag Archives: tree

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

Glacial Erratics and Trees, Lembert Dome

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Glacial Erratics and Trees, Lembert Dome
Glacial Erratics and Trees, Lembert Dome

Glacial Erratics and Trees, Lembert Dome. Yosemite National Park, California. June 5, 2010. a© Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Glacial erratics and trees at the base of Lembert Dome, Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park.

This photograph was made last spring in early June, when I drove over Tioga Pass on a quick one-day jaunt right around the time that the road was re-opened for the season after its annual winter closure. The road opened a bit later than usual in 2010 due to above average and late snow fall, and when I crossed there was as much or more snow than I recall seeing up there.

This was one of my marathon drive days. I started well before dawn in the San Francisco Bay Area and arrived in Yosemite in the very early morning and without any concrete plan – except that the ideas of visiting waterfalls and possibly getting up to Tioga Pass were on my mind. I did stop near the Valley first, where I made a series of photographs of Cascade Creek in virtually full flow. After doing this and making a very brief visit to the Valley, I decided to visit the high country along Tioga Pass road. I went just over the pass before turning back. There was so much snow still around that in most places it still looked much more like winter than like early June.

I finally started heading back to the west, as my plan was to return late to the SF Bay Area. As I left the pass and started down toward Tuolumne Meadows the light began to get “interesting” as the sun dropped lower in the west and some high clouds occasionally softened the light. As I drove past Lembert Dome I thought of photographing these glacial erratics that sit on the apron at the bottom of the dome before making one last stop to photograph snow-covered Tuolumne Meadow in the day’s last light.

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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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Tree and Pond, Fog

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Tree and Pond, Fog
Tree and Pond, Fog

Tree and Pond, Fog. Cosumnes River Wildlife Preserve, California. January 23, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A solitary tree and a winter pond on a very foggy Central Valley morning, Cosumnes River Wildlife Preserve.

On my first visit to this wildlife preserve in California’s Central Valley (located between Stockton and Sacramento) I was thinking that I might have a chance to photograph wildlife, namely that incredible number of migrating birds that spend their winters in the rich, wet areas of this part of California. I knew it would be foggy, but I like that. (If you have followed my blog for even a short time you have perhaps seen some of my “barely there” photographs in which most details are nearly entirely obscured by clouds, rain, mist, or fog. )

I was not disappointed by a lack of fog! When I arrived it was so thick that I couldn’t see more than perhaps 100 or 200 feet! The Central Valley fog us tule fog which rises from the wet ground rather than blowing in from somewhere else. (The latter is the type of fog in, say, San Francisco, where it often blows in off the ocean.) Since tule fog starts at ground level, it often is not that thick. On a number of occasions I’ve been driving (slowly!) though terribly thick tule fog in the Central Valley, so thick that it seemed risky to drive at even 25 mph, only to look up and see stars in the sky overhead! On my way past Tracy on this morning, as I entered the fog I noted that it was perhaps only 30-50 feet deep. Because of this, the fog has a special quality that is not found as often in the ocean fog that is more common in the San Francisco Bay Area. The tule fog seems often to me to have a luminous quality that I attribute to the light that comes down from above even in the thickest fog.

That was somewhat the case here. I walked into the slough area across the road from the visitor center at the Preserve, and into an area that is mostly open fields in the summer, but mostly a giant pond in the winter. Everywhere around me I could hear the hundreds or thousands of waterfowl – ducks, geese, and who knows what else, and I later saw egrets and sandhill cranes – but I could see almost nothing. Eventually I could just barely make out his small tree standing on a shallow area where some grasses grew. I wondered if the photograph would have enough contrast to even be usable, but in the end there was just enough detail. (It is hard to see in the small jpg, but it is certainly there in the 12 x 18 test print I made.) At first I thought it would end up being a monochrome photograph, and I spent a lot of time taking it through my workflow with that in mind. But something just wasn’t quite working for me, so I decided to reconsider and try a color rendition. In the print, I think that this ends up looking better in color in several ways. First, the soft blue cast that I thought I’d want to avoid, more strongly evokes for me the feeling of actually being there, especially through that luminous quality of the tule fog light that I mentioned earlier. In addition, I think that some of the very subtle color variations turn out to be important.

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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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Textures

Winter Willows, Cosumnes River

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Winter Willows, Cosumnes River
Winter Willows, Cosumnes River

Winter Willows, Cosumnes River. Central Valley, California. January 23, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Bare winter willow trees in swampy land near the shore of the Cosumnes River, Central Valley, California.

(Thanks to John and Tom for setting me straight about this “brush” – these are dormant willow trees. I have changed the title of the photograph accordingly!)

When I arrived at the Cosumnes Wildlife Preserve on this morning it was very, very foggy – which is fine by me, since I like the moody and mysterious possibilities that come with shooting in the fog. However, on most mornings the fog – even the persistent Central Valley tule fog – eventually thins out and the light starts to shine through. For me the short period when the sun first begins to force its way through the gloom is a special one. For a period (often a short period) the weak light begins to define and highlight textures and forms and warm things up, but the softness of the light still remains. An analogy that comes to mind is that short but wonderful period of the day when spring skiing that occurs between the frozen morning slopes and the afternoon slush – it is a moment that is worth some difficulty to find.

I had wandered about in the thicker fog for a couple of hours when the sun first began to appear. I was in what had seemed like a pretty gray and drab place on a levee next to a lower area filled with brush. Then, as the light increased, the green colors of the branches began to glow and the contrast began to increase.

(I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I have absolutely no idea what these plants are. They are growing in a low area next to the levee that appears to flood periodically. If any one knows… )

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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.

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

Forest and Pond, Winter

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Forest and Pond, Winter
Forest and Pond, Winter

Forest and Pond, Winter. Yosemite Valley, California. January 16, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trees grow out of a small winter melt-water pool in Yosemite Valley, California.

As I drove down the Valley I spotted this very quiet seasonal pool that was reflecting the forms of the forest trees in the soft late-afternoon light. As the temperature dropped there was just the slightest hint of shallow fog starting to form above the surface of the water.

If you are the type who reads the “technical data” accompanying the photos you perhaps notice the unusual choice of lens for this photograph. You might also be surprised at just how often I use a long lens, even this 100-400 zoom, for landscape subjects. Besides getting me “closer” to subjects that would otherwise be out of reach – that was the case here where there was water between me and the trees – the longer lenses also compress the contents of the scene and can also help eliminate elements that would otherwise distract from the main scene.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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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.