Tag Archives: trunk

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

Snag, Sky

November 12, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Old dead snags can be some of the most compelling sights in the High Sierra. They are everywhere —on the glaciated granite slabs, high atop ridges, within the first, lying in meadows. They are the other end of the life cycle begin by small trees at the edges of meadows. Sometimes to me they seem almost closer in spirit to rocks than to other living things, and some that die in dry rocky places continue to stand for a long time before finally decaying and fading away. Because they are stripped of small branches and needles, the reveal the complex and twisting shapes of the inner tree.

I came across this snag high in an area of granite slabs above a lake where we were camped. I visited it several times, intrigued by its shape and challenged to figure out a way to photograph it that did not include the surrounding living trees. Finally I found an angle that I could photograph with a long lens, tightly cropping a section of its form against the gray of a cloudy sky. In the end I decided on a monochrome rendition, feeling that it better captures the abstract from of the trunk and branches.

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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. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

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

Yellow Leaves, White Trunks

October 30, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A few yellow leaves remain in a grove of small, tightly packed Eastern Sierra aspens

With this year’s unusual Eastern Sierra fall color transition, I had plenty of opportunities to photograph aspen groves with few or no leaves. Most likely as a result of the four-year California drought, some aspen trees seemed to be under a lot of stress. Some of these trees were bare very early in the season, others changed colors a week or more early, and other simply lost their leaves without a real color transition. (Fortunately, some trees were not as stressed, and these prolonged the color season to and beyond the usual time in mid to late October.)

I enjoy photographing dense groves of small trees, with their complex and packed patterns of trunks and leaves. I spotted this grove a day earlier while in the area, so late in the day when the light started to fade and I found myself nearby, I headed back this way to photograph the grove in fading light. I like photographing aspens in this light, as it fills in the shadows, avoids the stark shadows of midday light, and tends to saturate the colors naturally. I searched this grove for the right spot and finally found it here — a place with almost uniformly dense small trees and a band of strongly colored leaves running horizontally.

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

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

Aspen Tree Trunks

October 7, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Aspen tree trunks in the first morning light

Frankly, aspen trees are fascinating in a huge range of ways, in all seasons, and in many kinds of light. At the current time of year most of us focus, with good reason, on the annual spectacle of their fall colors — blankets of yellow, gold, orange, and red. But aspens are beautiful when they are bare and they are beautiful when new leaves appear in the spring, and they are beautiful in the middle of summer when their leaves shimmer in the breeze.

The trunks in this photograph are those of “fall color” aspens, and you can see a bit of that color in the background. However, there is another aspect of color in this photograph that I like to consider, namely the range of colors and textures in the bark of these trees. Ideally, we often think of aspen bark as being white. With the right trees and the right light it can, in fact, seem quite white. However, in most cases the bark colors are much more varied, ranging from gray to green to brown. The textures are also quite something — the trees can be almost perfectly smooth or they can be very rough and rugged. The pair of foreground trees in this photograph are an interesting case, especially if you think of aspen trunks as being white. A closer look reveals that the tree on the right has strong yellow-brown-golden tones while the one right next to it is covered with interesting red patterns!

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Pine Trees, Morning

August 17, 2015 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

A small grove of high elevation pine trees in morning Sierra Nevada light

Although I visit the Sierra frequently, it has been some time since my last real backpacking trip and even longer since I last me up with my “Talusdancers” friends. The Talusdancers go way back — to a time about two decades ago when a loosely organized group of us began joining regularly for Sierra backcountry trips that ranged from a few days to longer than a week. In early August I had the opportunity to get these things back on track, with a three-day backpack trip in the eastern Sierra with three of the old gang. I arrived before the others, was on the trail by mid-afternoon, and had set up camp and was fixing dinner before the sun set. My friends apparently got to the trailhead much later and didn’t start hiking until about 6:00 PM. As the sun was setting I heard the “holler” of my friend Owen coming from across the valley, and I yelled back to let him know I as there. They soon arrived, and I can report that there are few things more wonderful that meeting up in the backcountry with good friends you have not seen for some time!

Our camp was on a rise above the shore of a sub-alpine lake, a very familiar Sierra Nevada setting. Beyond the lake to the west the terrain rises, past more lakes and thinning trees, into the alpine zone, and eventually to Sierra crest peaks and ridge lines. To the east there was a long valley with several more lakes, ending at a drop off between the descending canyon walls, and in the far distance we could see the high desert of Owens Valley and even further off the line of the White Mountains. We camped in the midst of an open grove of small, high-elevation lodgepole pines, common Sierra trees, but always beautiful in the early morning light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: trunk

Snag, Sky

Yellow Leaves, White Trunks

Aspen Tree Trunks

Pine Trees, Morning

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