Tag Archives: tree

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

Five Pines, Reflected Light of El Capitan

November 22, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Late afternoon light reflected from the face of El Capitan gently illuminates a group of five ponderosa pines near El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite Valley.

I photograph the oak trees of El Capitan Meadow almost every time I visit the Valley. The normal thing to do is to take the road back toward the west end of the Valley, pull out along the right side of the road, and either photograph from the road or head out to the south into the meadow itself. Almost every time I do this I look at the trees on the other side of the road and find them interesting, but I haven’t had much luck in photographing them. I often have the same experience – I look over there and think that there should be obvious subjects for a photograph, and sometimes even pick out general subjects… but when I try to actually shoot them nothing happens.

On this late afternoon on a fall day, the sun had just dropped below the cliffs to the west and I had more or less finished shooting the subjects that I was working with in the meadow. I headed back to the car and once again looked across the road into the forest along its north side. I thought I saw some interesting light over there and a bit further west, so I started walking. Eventually I came to a row of very large trees which I photographed, though I’m still not quite “seeing” an image in those shots. As I worked here I saw this group of five pines nearby and noticed that now that the sunlight was starting to fade from the Valley floor that they were lit with a strong glow from the south west face of El Capitan, which looks right above this section of the forest – it was as if someone had set up a 3000′ foot tall light panel just for me.

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.

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

Four Oak Trees, El Capitan Meadow

November 20, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Four black oak trees with early autumn foliage stand in late-afternoon light at El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite Valley.

These four oak trees in El Capitan Meadow are almost iconic, having been photographed by many, many people. On this trip I stopped in El Capitan Meadow near the end of the day – this was my last major shooting location before leaving the Valley for the long trip back to the Bay Area. While there was considerably time left before sunset, because El Capitan Meadow sits to the east of some very tall cliffs, this photograph and others in the series were made just before the list direct light fell on the area. The fact that the areas closer to the cliff faces along the north side of the valley were already in shade helped set off the backlit leaves of the four trees.

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.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

North Lake and the Sierra Crest, Fall

November 16, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Brilliant gold and red fall aspens ring the upper shore of North Lake as the Sierra Crest towers above.

Somewhat past the “golden hours” of first light I investigated a hill above this lake as a possible shooting location. Because this was a morning of mixed clouds and sun, the time for good light was more extended than it might otherwise have been. The clouds began thicker and gradually began to thin, and as they did so the mixed sun and cloud shadows moved continually across the landscape, spotlighting different parts of the scene. This was one of those situations that puts the lie to the notion that the landscape is a fixed and static thing – from my perspective the entire scene was in a constant state of flux and photographing it required full attention. Here most of the shadows had cleared from the scene, with the exception of some over the foreground lake and a few scattered among the peaks, and beams of light slanted into the scene to light up the grove of brilliantly colorful fall aspens.

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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Color, North Lake

November 15, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 7 Comments

Colorful autumn aspen colors surround the shores of North Lake with the Sierra Crest beyond.

I should probably hand out sunglasses and an Official Icon Alert warning with this one. Yes, it is that North Lake.

Later on this morning, after shooting elsewhere around the lake in the early hours, and after the workshop shooters had mostly moved on (after all, the good light was gone… ;-), I decided to cross the outlet stream and see about climbing up a hill above that lake that I had been thinking about. I found an easy trail along the side of the lake, but then had to more or less bushwhack my way up the slope to get above the tops of the very red lakeside aspens, which is no easy task when carrying a large photo pack and a good size tripod. (Once up there, I discovered a very easy trail going straight to my position. Sigh.)

Although it was no longer the “golden hour” and the morning was well along, there were scattered clouds. These shadows from these clouds moved rapidly across the landscape, sometimes producing almost uniform shade and sometimes lighting up some features while leaving others less visible. When I see conditions like this I often imagine the perfect positioning of the clouds and the light effects they produce – some primary feature caught in the spot light of a beam of sun, others in sunlight muted by thin clouds, and any spots that happen to be a bit too bright and distracting miraculously muted by a perfectly placed shadow. Yeah, right. But if I watch and wait long enough, something interesting almost always happens, and sometimes the moving clouds do momentarily solve composition and exposure problems. Here, the light on the bright red trees in the foreground is momentarily diminished by a passing cloud shadow and the shoreline trees are in sunlight… and the big cloud at upper left is reflecting on the surface of the water just beyond the foreground trees.

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.

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.