Tag Archives: trunks

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

Inside the Grove

Leave a comment
Inside the Grove
Among the trees of an Eastern Sierra aspen grove, autumn

Inside the Grove. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. October 9, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Among the trees of an Eastern Sierra aspen grove, autumn

Late in the afternoon on this day of Eastern Sierra fall aspen color photography I found myself in a familiar place, where a small lateral road, narrow and gravel, roughly parallels are larger paved road. I like to pull off the main road here and slowly drive the short distance up canyon on the gravel road, stopping along the way to view and photograph the variety of aspen trees that grow here. It is especially nice late in the day when the sun drops behind high peaks, leaving soft, shadowed light.

I pulled into a familiar pull-out along this road, at a spot where I have photographed in the past and where there is  a little grove of small trees. None of the trees seems to be as tall as twenty feet, but they grow very closely together — so closely that it is actually difficult to walk among them. The spot is often quiet — personal rather than iconic — especially late on an autumn day, and I sometimes simply pause quietly here for a while. On other occasions, like this one, I make photographs. I decided that I would put on a very wide-angle lens and then walk in among the trees, photographing them very close up and trying to capture some of the feeling of being inside such a dense little grove.

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 and Amazon.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Leafless Aspen Grove

Leave a comment
Leafless Aspen Grove
Sierra Nevada aspen grove with bare trunks

Leafless Aspen Grove. Sierra Nevada, California. October 4, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sierra Nevada aspen grove with bare trunks

I’ve written before that this has been a very strange fall color season in the Eastern Sierra, and this photograph might be an example. Although the photograph was made very near the beginning of October, typically the time that the peak colors are arriving, this grove was one of many that were already completely devoid of autumn leaves. After spending some time in a very colorful area much further south along the eastern slopes of the Sierra, I decided to head back to the San Francisco Bay Area over a couple of passes that cross the range much further north. Near the top of one of these passes there is a vast open area that holds many large aspen groves, and I had hopes of photographing some color here late in the day.

I arrived to find a beautiful scene — high, open sagebrush country with clouds moving quickly across the landscape and creating changeable light. But the aspens were pretty much spent. I pulled off the main road at a place I know well, and took a short detour down a little gravel road toward the edge of groves where there are some very large trees. Here I found the trees, alright, but the leaves were gone. Fortunately, I like aspen groves in almost any condition — with bare branches, with new spring growth, with colorful autumn leaves, in snow — so I went to work photographing the dense patterns of closely spaced aspen trunks in the soft late-day light, muted even further by clouds.

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 and Amazon.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Grove of Small Aspens

Leave a comment
Grove of Small Aspens
A dense autumn grove of small eastern Sierra Nevada aspen trees with bare trunks

Grove of Small Aspens. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. October 9, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A dense autumn grove of small eastern Sierra Nevada aspen trees with bare trunks

This little grove, and this specific spot in this grove has become a sort of old friend. It is one of those odd little spots that most people would probably miss, and with good reason. The trees are small, they are on the far side of a creek, access is via a short and unmarked little one-lane gravel road, and the trees are in many ways unremarkable, especially in a place and at a time when there are many larger and more spectacular groves nearby.

I first came here by accident some years back, turning into a nearly hidden side road on a whim and then randomly exploring its short length. Part way along there is a wide spot, and I happened to pull off there, get out and look around. The small and very dense trees got my attention, and I discovered that they grow so closely that it is difficult to pass among them. (This year I thought I’d walk through the grove to see what is on the other side — I have up about thirty feet in!) But such a grove, with so many little trees, offers an astounding range of arrangements of trees. I can photograph up close with a wide-angle lens; I can step back and narrow the frame with a long lens, I can move in among the trees, I can visit when the trees are full of colorful leaves or almost bare. In any case, every time I pass by here, without fail, I take the little side road and stop quietly here for a few minutes.

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 and Amazon.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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 Grove, Yellow and Green

Leave a comment
Aspen Grove, Yellow and Green
The transition from green to yellow foliage in an eastern Sierra Nevada aspen grove

Aspen Grove, Yellow and Green. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. October 9, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The transition from green to yellow foliage in an eastern Sierra Nevada aspen grove

Aspen color is a more complex and fascinating thing than what if first seems — and that first impression is quite a strong one to begin with. The first thing most of us see when we learn about aspens is simply “brilliant color,” enhanced by the tree’s juxtaposition with other spectacular landscape elements and amplified when the trees are seen in vast and colorful groves. In fact, there are few things more astonishing than a huge grove of aspens at peak fall color, stretching up and across a sub-alpine landscape on a fall day.

Once you catch the aspen bug — and have seen quite a few of those vast and colorful groves — subtler things start to become interesting. There are too many elements to fully describe them all in this little post, but they include the patterns produced by the white trunks, almost regardless of leaf color. The color shadings are more varied than we first see — from the first lime-green hints of upcoming color change, through the spectrum of colors encompassing yellow and gold and red and orange and brown, and including the subtler effects of brown and black leaves late in the season. When I saw this vignette (within a much larger grove) my firs thought was perhaps “not quite at peak,” but I think that the combination of a few leaves just arriving at near-peak color against the background of leaves yet to change is pretty interesting, too, especially when the scene is cut through by those stark white trunks.

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 and Amazon.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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