Tag Archives: trees

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Dead Trees, Clearing Storm, Sunset

March 2, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A winter storm clears to sunset light above forest of dead trees

The Sierra Nevada has been under stress for the past dozen years of so. (Technically speaking, some of these stresses have been building for longer than that, but the effects have become acute more recently.) Much of this is related to outlier weather/climate conditions and the secondary effects they have caused. The range has become much warmer. There are well-documents studies tracing the rising elevations of species of plants and animals adapting to this change. Recently the range has also experience some virtually unprecedented (at least in historical times) dry conditions, with a five-year period of tremendous drought broken by last years record precipitation, and then followed by what looks to be another very dry year this season. (We are getting some late rain, but not likely enough to make up for very dry December and February periods.) All of this affects forests it many ways, though two are obvious. The Sierra has always experienced wildfire, but recent fires have been extremely intense, going beyond the natural “pruning” effect to utterly destroy whole forests, and the areas affected by this destruction are huge. And in the wake of the drought conditions, beetle infestations have killed of tens of millions for trees.

This destruction is plain to see, and especially so to those of us who have visited the range for many decades. I sometimes imagine that new visitors driving through some denuded areas simply assume that this is “how it is” there, but others of us recall passing through deep forests in those places. As all of this has unfolded, I’ve tried to find beauty in such places — and it is there to find. These snags are on the side of a ridge, perhaps at the 5000′ level or so, on slopes facing west toward the foothills and the Central Valley beyond. It was snowing on this evening in the mountains, but I was near the western edge of the storm, and near sunset the snow diminished and the clouds thinned, and sunset light began to light the remains clouds and precipitation from behind, silhouetting these trees.

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

Curving Trees, Falling Snow

March 1, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Snow falls among winter dormant trees in a Yosemite meadow

I have known for a month or so that I’d be in Yosemite for the last full week of February. That lead-in month was a very strange one for California weather. We had virtually no precipitation, and warm temperatures often made if feel more like summer than winter. These are not happy conditions for wintertime photography in the park, when a lot of the plant life is dormant and when snow and storm clouds usually provide more interesting conditions.

But immediately upon my arrival — literally the first moments I spent in the Valley — the weather changed. Not only did winter weather return, but it did so with a vengeance, and temperatures dropped much lower than would be typical for the date. On most days of my stay there were at least some clouds and on several days there was snowfall. The day I made this photograph brought the most daytime snow. In the afternoon a weak front worked its way into the Valley, and there were periodic snow showers. I headed to a tree-filled meadow when this shower arrived, and there I photographed juxtapositions of the interestedly shaped trees silhouetted against the falling snow.

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Museum Windows, Shadows

February 26, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Silhouetted figures, windows, and beams of light, Metropolitan Museum

This is a second “take” on a location I photographed between Christmas and New Year’s Day last year, when we spent a week in New York. It was an exceptionally cold week, and on a few days we decided that we really needed to find indoor activities. (On other days we defied the cold and wind and walked all over Manhattan anyway.) One of the reliable options is a visit to a museum, so we headed to the Metropolitan, where we wanted to see the David Hockney show. You can’t see it in this photograph, but the museum was packed with other visitors who were also looking for a warm, indoor option.

We passed through this room twice, on our way to and from a section of the museum with relatively modern art that we wanted to view. This space is really essentially a very wide walkway, though I suspect that it could also be used for exhibits at times. The row of tall windows along the southern wall opened to Central Park and, further away, the Manhattan skyline. Lots of people took advantage of the wide window sills as a place to sit. The resulting effects of light were intriguing — backlit people in a variety of poses, the faint image of the park and city outside, and the alternative effects of shadows and reflections from the bright light streaming through the windows.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Island With Trees, Thinning Fog

February 2, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sunlight begins to illuminate a small wetland island as San Joaquin Valley tule fog thins

We all know that (apparently false) story about the number of words that Inuit people have for the myriad types of snow. I suspect that it would be possible to have a similarly diverse vocabulary of descriptions for fog, dependent upon its thickness, temperature, quality and color of light, tendency to move, effect on sound, time of day, season, persistence, and much more. Photographing in California is something of a laboratory in the nature of fog, in that we have so many types. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area I am very familiar with the type of fog created by the marine influence — often cold and gray and damp, and frequently a feature of the late-spring and summer months. Photographing Central Valley birds (and driving across the great valley while traveling to and from the Sierra Nevada) has given me ample opportunities to know the tule fog, mostly a winter phenomenon caused by cool and damp conditions over land.

On winter days when I photograph in the valley I experience transitions though many different types of fog and fog-light. I often start before dawn, when the fog and darkness can close the world down to what I can (barely) see in my headlights, or by the glow of commercial signs and streetlights as I pass through towns. Before sunrise the fog can glow in colors ranging from sky blue to the gaudy reds, oranges, yellows, and purples of first light on clouds above the fog. Eventually that color dissipates and the fog can simply become gray. Then, as it things (often from the top down), and light begins to filter down to the ground level, the colors of grasses and trees and water being to appear faintly.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: trees

Dead Trees, Clearing Storm, Sunset

Curving Trees, Falling Snow

Museum Windows, Shadows

Island With Trees, Thinning Fog

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