Tag Archives: trunks

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: New England

Birch Trunks, Fall Foliage

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Birch Trunks, Fall Foliage
White birch tree trunks emerge from a sea of fall color, New England.

Birch Trunks, Fall Foliage. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

White birch tree trunks emerge from a sea of fall color, New England.

For this California photographer, the autumn. Eastern Sierra aspens are some of the most interesting trees. Their leaves can certainly be colorful — often yellow/gold, but also ranging through orange and red. But their white or near-white trunks set them apart. They are fascinating no matter what the leaves are doing — spring. green, autumn color, or winter bare. I take it that there are aspens in New England, though their presence is overwhelmed by the other trees that we don’t see in California. As I photographed in the Northeast it seemed to me that that birch trees are more or less the aspen surrogates there, and they often provide similarly interesting trunk structures.

It is easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer mass of Northeastern fall color, to the point that it sometimes is difficult to make a photograph of the subject. I know that may sound strange — those colors are exciting, so why not just point the camera at them and make pictures? That’s exactly the problem. It is easy for the colors to be the whole show, so I look for other things that can tie them together in some sort of form. Tree trunks can often do this. A few trunks slicing, twisting, or slanting through a scene can give it direction and flow that is hard to achieve in a photograph of just the colorful leaves.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Aspen Grove, Red and Gold

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Aspen Grove, Red and Gold
Red and gold autumn color in an Eastern Sierra Nevada aspen grove.

Aspen Grove, Red and Gold. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Red and gold autumn color in an Eastern Sierra Nevada aspen grove.

A small change in a subject can alter how we see it and even make photographs possible in a location that might have not worked in the past. I have driven past this grove scores of times, occasionally stopping to. look at some colorful nearby trees. But I never took the time to walk just a little bit further to this camera position. Why not? Often there are too many people here, and when I usually visit the color is not at its prime. But this time I came about a week later and on a quiet weekday. The color was much more interesting, and the entire time I was there I saw only one other person.

The beginning of the Sierra aspen color season is a special time, and the beginning of the transition never fails to catch my attention. My favorite time frame is usually the first two weeks of October, perhaps because the start of the change is so compelling. But things are different — and equally interesting — a bit later, following that early color peak. I made this photograph in the third week of the month, when trees at the higher elevations had already lost most of their leaves. Even here a lot of foliage had fallen. However, this meant that virtually all of the remaining leaves were shades of yellow, orange, and red… and the thinner foliage revealed the white aspen 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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: New England

Autumn Leaves, Trunks

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Autumn Leaves, Trunks
Autumn leaves and soaring tree trunks in a White Mountains forest.

Autumn Leaves, Trunks. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Autumn leaves and soaring tree trunks in a White Mountains forest.

This photograph illustrates a few important take-aways from fall photography, things that can be extrapolated to other kinds of photography, too. Again, the location was not iconic, even though it is along/near iconic places. We had stopped after seeing a sign for a pond, but I ended up finding the nearby forest even more interesting. Note that not all of the trees have changed color. As overwhelming as a fully fall-colored forest can be, the colors often stand out when there is some “non-color” in the frame, too. Note, too, that I made this photograph in soft light, which intensifies the colors while opening up the shadows. Finally, I think that some non-color structural elements can help with the composition of photographs of the subject — here that comes from the verticals of the tree trunks.

One thing we learned on this trip — our first to New England in the fall — is how quickly the leaves reach and then pass their peak color. The build-up seems a bit slower, but there was literally one day when it was obvious that the peak had arrived. And only one day later the leaves began to fall more quickly, bare trees became more apparent, and the color was in decline. The show wasn’t over, but the process was clear. Fortunately, because the color doesn’t arrive everywhere at the same moment, flexible photographers and leaf-peepers can move on to different locations that haven’t peaked yet.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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Photographs: Nature

New England Woods #5

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New England Woods #5
A dense New England forest full of slender trees.

New England Woods #5. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A dense New England forest full of slender trees.

Slightly out of numerical order, here is another in the short series of photographs of New England woods from our late-August visit to (mostly) Vermont and parts of Massachusetts. To recap, we spent a week with a large family group in Southern Vermont, not far from Wilmington, where we rented a large place that we all shared. It wan’t primarily a photography trip — we spent more time talking, cooking, eating, and generally sitting around. But I did have a few opportunities to explore bits of the natural surroundings.

Again, the dense growth of these woods was unfamiliar to me. On the west costs I’m more likely to see relatively open forests or perhaps grasslands interspersed with deciduous trees. Here in Vermont the growth is thick , and it comes right to the edge of roadways and paths, leaving few opportunities for long views. So I often found myself walking along rural roads and photographing into this lovely foliage from its edge.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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