Tag Archives: tree

Branch With Spring Leaves, Zion National Park

April 11, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

New spring leaves and seeds appear on the branch of a box elder tree, Zion National Park, Utah.

Among the places I photographed on my recent Utah trip was Zion National Park – I place about which I have heard and seen much, but which I had not previously visited. A friend described the Virgin River Canyon in this park as “Yosemite Valley in red,” and this seems like an apt description. I responded differently to each of the parks we visited. Canyonlands was huge and austere. Arches was literally “fantastic,” and elicited the most intense response. But Zion seems like a place that is more subtle, with a lot to see and get to know.

Among the features that seem to me to typify this area are the cottonwood, box elder, red maple, and other trees. During our visit they were just barely beginning to get their new spring leaves – in some places we saw bare trees, in a few we saw trees that had almost a full set of leaves, but for the most part we saw trees that had just a hint of the bright green color of new leaves. One morning we took the short walk to weeping rock in Zion Canyon. While I didn’t quite see photographs in this feature itself, I did spot this box elder branch suspended just about the trail, backlit by morning light and with the faint colors of sandstone cliffs and canyon bottom plants beyond.

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

Impossible Tree Fall, Spring

April 7, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Rushing water of a seasonal creek splashes and leaps over rocks and past a tree, Yosemite National Park.

The name of this little seasonal waterfall – found along highway 120 – is not, as far as I can tell, official. However, it seems to be fairly well-known among Yosemite folks. It is also a great name – not only because of the fun conduction of words, but also because it so aptly describes the most notable feature of the fall, the “impossible tree.” In this odd little section of rocky hillside above a road, a creek flows for a short time in the spring as the winter snow melts out. In this middle of this rocky jumble grows a single tree, with its roots seemingly attached to nothing more than rocks. So it is a doubly impossible tree, growing in the middle of a waterfall and somehow finding sustenance from granite.

This photograph was made outside of the more typical “golden hour” time, though it wasn’t all that late in the morning. My timing was just right – though luck probably had as much to do with this as did planning. As we passed by, the sun was rising high enough to peek over the top of the ridge above the fall and its light was just starting to strike the leaping water from behind and above.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Forest, Morning Light

April 6, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light shines into forest at the top of bluffs above the Pacific Ocean, Point Lobos State Reserve.

These forests at Point Lobos are often very appealing places to be, but I find them to be difficult to photograph! They are full of light in the right conditions – while the trees can grow somewhat close together, they tend to form a relatively open canopy that lets the light in. There is often moss hanging down from branches. Various plants grow along the ground – though watch out for the poison oak! And, of course, when you are actually there the constant sound of the surf is never far away, the air is cool, and there is often at least some breeze.

But some of these same attractive features are the source of (for me, anyway) the challenges of photographing these forests. The light, as beautiful as it is, can be very tricky. Because of the thin canopy of the trees, the direct sunlight often makes it down into the lower reaches of the forest and hits trunks and branches, creating spots of very bright light that are hard to manage. I could photograph (and have done so) in overcast or foggy conditions… but there goes that light. And the dense growth makes it difficult to find compositions that show the larger forest itself rather than just isolated elements of it. But on this visit high, thin clouds came to the rescue. While they were thin enough to allow directional sun light into the forest, they were just opaque enough to take the harsh edge off of the light.

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

Spring Torrent, Boulders, and Trees

March 27, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Spring torrent, mist, and trees, Yosemite. — “Spring Torrent, Boulders, and Trees” — Spring snowmelt swells a rushing creek as it rushes past trees and over boulders, Yosemite National Park.

This is a Yosemite National Park cascade that I frequently photograph – at various times of the year including winter, the spring runoff season, and the much quieter and more sedate autumn time. This creek drops precipitously down a steep mountainside (as a number of Yosemite Valley creeks tend to do!) and passes in several place through narrow, twisting, and granite boulder-filled channels.

I made this photograph at almost right around the peak of the spring runoff during an above-average precipitation year, so the water was roaring though this section. The mist that is visible in the photograph was being blown strongly down the canyon and I had to stand in its flow to make this photograph. I recall that I more or less figured out the composition (two actually – one vertical and this one horizontal) before I moved into position, and then I quickly stepped into the mist and made a series of exposures before I and my equipment became too wet, shooting straight into the blowing mist. Now, when I look at this photograph, the memory of the cool, wet air and the tremendous sound of the cascading water comes back to me.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: tree

Branch With Spring Leaves, Zion National Park

Impossible Tree Fall, Spring

Forest, Morning Light

Spring Torrent, Boulders, and Trees

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