Tag Archives: trunks

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

Autumn Aspen Grove

June 24, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An eastern Sierra Nevada aspen grove beginning to change colors

How about a bit of fall color on this early summer morning? Every summer I begin to think about fall. There are wonderful things about summer — schedules, warmth, easier access to mountains, and more — but I prefer autumn. It is partially something as mundane as my preference for cooler temperatures, but it is also that I like times of obvious transition and times when nature has a slightly sharper edge. I’ll enjoy this summer, but I’m sure that every aspen tree I see in the Sierra in the next few months will make me look forward to autumn.

This aspen color vignette is a small scene from a much larger grove that runs up a hillside in the eastern Sierra Nevada. I prefer to photograph it early and late in the day when the surrounding peaks cast shadows across the trees, both softening the light and opening up the shadows a bit. Among the larger grove are many small scenes where straight trunks (not the norm in the Sierra) are visible among the leaves. On this very early October day most of the grove was still green, but the seasonal change was beginning with some of the smaller 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

Tree Trunks, Autumn Leaves

November 12, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Against a background of Yosemite Valley granite cliffs, tall tree trunks tower above autumn color

It isn’t unusual for me to try both a portrait (vertical) and landscape (horizontal) version of a photograph when both are possible. If for no other reason, sometimes a client may wish to license an image in a specific orientation, and I hate to say, “Uh, no” when asked if the other one is available! But in other cases, the subject really works both ways, and I feel like this is one such subject. A few days ago I shared a landscape orientation photograph of this subject. In some ways that wider-than-tall approach to trees can do a better job of suggesting the height of something by perhaps creating a subliminal impression that the subject is so tall that it doesn’t fit the frame — and the viewer gets to imagine what is “up there.” On the other hand, the portrait orientation can actually present the strong verticals with fewer distractions.

This photograph, and others in the series, were made near a popular and iconic Yosemite Valley location where I had stopped for a moment. Nearby, and in the opposition direction from that icon, there is a lovely bit of dry grass meadow dotted with small oak trees, and my object was to go photograph there. One thing led to the next and I soon found myself in a small clearing next to these tall trucks that had recently been burned a bit in a management fire.

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

Burned Forest, Autumn Color

November 1, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn colors in a forest of burned trees, Yosemite Valley

During this final weekend of October I spent a few days photographing in the Yosemite area, including along the road between Oakhurst and the Valley and then in Yosemite Valley itself. I had quite varied weather conditions — pouring rain on the first day as I drove up from the Bay Area, beautiful evening and morning fog followed by a sunny autumn day, and then a weather forecast of heavy rain that convinced me to beat a retreat from the park a day early.

Late on the second afternoon I stopped at a very popular and iconic location in the Valley, but I walked the other way, heading out into an area of rock, dry meadow and oak trees that gradually transitioned into conifer trees and big leaf maples, the latter being at their peak of fall color. Knowing the Valley pretty well at this point, I often prefer to look past the big sights and just wander, and that’s what I did here, eventually ending up in an area that had been burned recently by a management fire, clearing out the underbrush and charring the lower trunks of tall trees. In fact, the lower trunks were so affected that there were no branches to obstruct the view of the maples just beyond or of the vertical granite cliffs a bit further away.

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

Aspens, Green and Yellow

October 27, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Transitional early autumn aspen color in the Eastern Sierra Nevada

These tall aspen trees with their straight trunks are not the most common sight in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, where smaller and more twisted trees are more the rule. But in protected and well-watered locations the trees can grow straight and tall. I photographed these at the beginning of what most would consider the prime aspen color season in this region, the first two or three weeks of October. The color starts up high (often even earlier than this) among small, high elevation trees and then works its way down into the canyons and out into the drier lands east of the Sierra. At this spot, though not within the view of the camera, there was an entire hillside covered in bright yellow small trees, but among these larger trees the show was just beginning.

This demonstrates something that Sierra aspen-chasers eventually learn, namely that if the trees in one spot are not ideal we can simply look higher or lower, north or south, and we’ll probably find trees in good condition. Although I did not make it back after this visit during the 2016 aspen color season, I’m quite sure that those who came to this spot a week or two after I was there found that some of the yellow trees had lost their leaves and that the trees that are green in this photograph were brightly colored.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: trunks

Autumn Aspen Grove

Tree Trunks, Autumn Leaves

Burned Forest, Autumn Color

Aspens, Green and Yellow

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