Tag Archives: trees

Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Follow the Leader(s)

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Follow the Leader(s)
A flock of sandhill cranes taking flight over Pacific Flyway wetlands on a winter morning.

Follow the Leader(s). © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A flock of sandhill cranes taking flight over Pacific Flyway wetlands on a winter morning.

Yeah, I know — MORE cranes! I can’t help it. They have become my favorite Pacific Flyway migratory birds, plus I had some excellent opportunities to photography them this past winter. (This topic came up in a recent online discussion in which the question of how I managed to find/corral a large number of them came up. I’m thinking of adopting a new moniker: “Crane Wrangler.”)

On this late-winter morning there was just a hint of fog in the air as the sun came up — just enough to mute the first light and some of the more distant colors. A large contingent of these birds, probably well over 1000 of them, was standing in shallow wetland ponds. As the light increased, they gradually began to depart in small groups, and I tracked them as they flew across the scene.

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Two Aspen Trees and Cliff

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Two Aspen Trees and Cliff
Two autumn aspen trees against the rocky face of an Eastern Sierra Nevada cliff.

Two Aspen Trees and Cliff. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.– all rights reserved.

Two autumn aspen trees against the rocky face of an Eastern Sierra Nevada cliff.

This is another photograph that isn’t quite totally new. Some years ago I made several exposures of this little scene, with the two trees with fall color backed by the rocky cliff face. (To be sure, this was not the only time I photographed these trees — this is a favorite spot of mine in the right conditions.) But This one is just a bit different than the earlier one — a very slightly different position, I think, and a different crop, plus some refinement of how I approached the post processing.

I sort of wonder if it may be too early to start sharing fall color photographs. Ah, heck, no! Never too early for that! In fact, my mind is typically on at least three seasons at a time anyway. First, the season that just passed and from which I still have raw files to process. Second the current season because, well, that’s obvious, right? Third, one season beyond the current one — because I always have slightly longer term plans running in the back of my mind.

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Peninsula Trees, Morning

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Peninsula Trees, Morning
Trees on a rocky peninsula catch the first morning sun at a Yosemite National Park backcountry lake.

Peninsula Trees, Morning. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trees on a rocky peninsula catch the first morning sun at a Yosemite National Park backcountry lake.

There’s nothing like have the time for a slow morning wandering the perimeter of a forest-lined Yosemite backcountry lake. We camped at this one for something like four nights back in 2014, when a group of us spent a week in the high country making photographs. Each morning, well before sunrise, it was down to the shoreline wander and photograph.

I love photographs of trees in back-light, but there are some challenges. The obvious one, of course, is that you are pretty much guaranteed to be shooting almost directly into the sun. But second challenge is that the scene between camera position and subject is often in the bright sunlight, even if the background is pleasantly shaded. Photographing on a lake can help with this issue since the water helpfully reflects that shaded background and is hardly affected at all by the direct light, aside from a bit of extra illumination of anything that happens to be floating on the water.

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Morning Shoreline

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Morning Shoreline
Boulders and forest reflected in the quiet water of a Yosemite National Park backcountry lake.

Morning Shoreline. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Boulders and forest reflected in the quiet water of a Yosemite National Park backcountry lake.

This photograph takes me back to 2014, when a group of us spent a week in the Yosemite backcountry. We first visited this lovely lake set in a forested bowl not far from the edge of a big canyon, in an area with lots of beautiful granite slabs, a nearby overlook, and early autumn meadows. We left this spot after a few days and set up another base camp halfway back to our trailhead.

The lake is not a large one, and almost every morning or evening wander along its banks ended up being a circumnavigation. One shoreline was mostly forested, another was dotted with granite boulders, and a smaller area near the outlet stream was more open and flat. I photographed this scene one early morning just before the light of the rising sun managed to angle down to the shoreline.

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.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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