Tag Archives: trees

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

Dissipating Storm Clouds, Sunset

November 24, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Sunset light on dissipating thunderstom clouds above granite slabs, Yosemite National Park.

Late on this September afternoon in the Yosemite back-country I had a good idea that something might happen around sunset, but I could not have known in advance just how intense the cloud color would turn out to be. The set-up was classic. Thunder storms had built up throughout the afternoon, and by late in the day I would see and hear large storms to my north and east – though I remained right on the edge of the storm potential as I was a bit further west. As evening approached the cloud-building forces began to diminish, leaving the tops of the larger cells unsupported, and they began to thin and stretch westward, curving up and over my location along the Tuolumne River.

Knowing that interesting light of one sort or another was probable, I walked to an area of granite slabs and bowls that I had photographed when visiting this area at the start of my trip nearly a week earlier. As I considered a few photographs of the granite and trees in that area, my attention kept being drawn to the sky. At first it remained a relatively low contrast mass of gray, though the thinning clouds started to allow views through falling virga towards more distant clouds that rose into the sunlight. Then, as the sun dropped and the foreground lost the direct light, the clouds began to light up and take on wildly saturated colors. (A technical note: in many of the photographs, though not in this one, the dynamic range between cloud highlights and foreground was so large that it required multiple exposures separated by up to five stops to capture it all!)

I moved to the base of the granite bowl in which I had photographed rocks and small trees a week before when I saw these spectacular clouds building to the north west. The color was simply unbelievable – and you can see that the intense saturated light was not just in the sky, but that it also colored the granite near the bottom of the image. For this photograph I used a short focal length to try to take in a large section of the flowing and wildly shaped and colored clouds.

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

Trees and Granite Bowl

November 21, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A variety of trees grow on a shallow layer of sandy soil in the middle of a large granite bowl, Yosemite National Park.

While the small, stunted and contorted trees that grow in impossibly small and barren cracks in the granite are amazing examples of how life can thrive with minimal support and against all odds, in some ways these groves of larger trees are at least as surprising. This group includes some very large and old specimens, yet they are growing in what cannot be much more than a foot or so of sandy soil washed down the surface of this glaciated granite slab – which elsewhere within its area supports nothing this extensive. In what must be the lowest part of the descending surface of the bowl, where perhaps more moisture is found and more sand and gravel transported, this “soil” – largely sand mixed with rocks and boulders – has collected and somehow these trees have managed to put down roots that allow them to grow and fill out a small grove.

I made the photograph in the very late afternoon as the sun was heading toward real evening light. The light is coming in at a low angle from the left and is just beginning to take on the warm coloration of evening. Because it was partly cloudy, I waited until the shadow from a thin cloud muted the light on the granite surface of the bowl in the background.

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

Trees and Granite Cliffs

November 10, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Trees ascend rocky slopes to the base of steep granite cliffs, Tuolumne River Canyon, Yosemite National Park.

There are still a few more photographs to be found among those I made during my weeklong mid-September backpack into the Yosemite back-country. I spent several days photographing in the Glen Aulin area and this is one more of the photographs from that area. In the evening the sun sets down canyon from Glen Aulin, and we had travelled to a spot where we could see down into the upper reaches of the canyon as the sun set. While I was photographing some closer subjects, I looked up and saw the light from the west back- and side-lighting trees at the upper edge of the forest before it gives way to steep granite cliffs.

One of the great pleasures of this trip was having the opportunity to spend a number of days in each location. We spent three days in this area at the start of the trip and I had the better part of two additional days on the way back to my car. In many cases, I might initially wonder how I could possibly spend that many days shooting one small area within walking distance of my camp. But many days later I had discovered more and more potential subjects… and I almost felt like I was running out of necessary time!

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Aspens and Cliff Face

November 9, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two aspen trees with a few remaining autumn leaves grow against a cliff near North Lake, California.

I photographed this little scene on my first real morning of aspen photography this season in early October. I arrived quite early at North Lake, driving up the snowed in gravel road right after it had apparently been reopened. It was unplowed but other vehicles had clearly been up there, I have four-wheel drive, and I wanted to see what I would find before too many others arrived later in the day. There were few people there when I arrived, which was a bit unusual since this area is often crawling with photographers, individually and in workshops, at this time of the year. But the fact that the road was still snow-covered and that the storms had affected the aspens seemed to keep people away.

I parked before arriving at the lake, shouldered my gear, and walked up to the lake. I bypassed the popular spot near the outlet stream – been there, done that! – and keep walking along the road that skirts the right side of the lake. Everything was still frozen and it was very cold – and I regretted not bringing my winter boots along! The aspen photography was not quite what I had hoped, but there were other subjects, among them the fresh snow – an unusual sight for early October!

In looking for subjects other than the “regular” views of North Lake – which can be spectacular and well worth photographing, too – I often walk slowly along the lake-side road and keep my eyes open along the rocky cliffs that line it. Because the direct sunlight doesn’t hit this spot until later in the day, it is often possible to find softer morning light and even some light reflected from across the lake. On this morning I found that many of the aspen leaves had fallen or turned brown as a result of the storm, but a few were left and the stark white trunks of the trees against the rocks seemed like an interesting subject.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: trees

Dissipating Storm Clouds, Sunset

Trees and Granite Bowl

Trees and Granite Cliffs

Autumn Aspens and Cliff Face

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