Tag Archives: tuolumne

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

Clearing Storm, Evening

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Clearing Storm, Evening
Summer thunder storm clouds clear at sunset above the Sierra Nevada crest, Yosemite National Park.

Clearing Storm, Evening. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Summer thunder storm clouds clear at sunset above the Sierra Nevada crest, Yosemite National Park.

Photographic prospects seem to be distributed across a sort of bell curve. Most of the time the opportunities are fine and interesting, and it is possible to make decent photographs from what you find. Occasionally I find myself at one of the sharp ends of the curve. When at the end where nothing much seems to be happening, I remind myself that I’m storing up karma for those moments when the opposite happens. And if you are out there enough, these unbelievable moments will happen from time to time — and they are enough to keep you coming back.

This was a truly memorable evening that provided an embarrassment of visual riches. Soon after this trip, I came up with a series of four photographs in landscape orientation that traced the astonishing evolution of the light from late afternoon through dusk. Four seemed like plenty at the time, so I left the rest behind — some of which would normally have been keepers. This is one of those, made when I briefly shifted the camera to portrait orientation.

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Rock, Flowing Water

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Rock, Flowing Water
A Sierra stream flows around a rock, reflecting trees and sky.

Rock, Flowing Water. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A Sierra stream flows around a rock, reflecting trees and sky.

You might think that when visiting a place with the spectacular scenic views found in Yosemite that I might find something a bit more… profound to photograph. Well, I do photograph those things, too. But these days I’m often more interested in looking for less-obvious things that perhaps have not ever been photographed. Like some rock sitting in an anonymous stream. But such rocks and such streams are as much a part of the experience of this place as the waterfalls, cliffs, and alpine peaks.

For years I had passed by a particular little bit of creek, glimpsed quickly as I passed by on my way to other places. On this day I finally stopped and took the time to poke around a bit here, and I made a few photographs of shallow water flowing over granite slabs. Here the water passes around a large rock that somehow ended up in the middle of the stream, and the moving surface of the creek reflects the surrounding forest, mountains, and the sky.

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

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

Fire Water

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Fire Water
Textures of moving water, reflected sky and clouds under wildfire smoke. Sierra Nevada.

Fire Water. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Textures of moving water, reflected sky and clouds under wildfire smoke. Sierra Nevada.

Fire water? Water and Fire? Smoke and Water? Hard to say. A group of use were in the Yosemite backcountry for a week, and after spending the first few days photographing around a quiet lake we moved to another location. Our partially cross-country route took us along an outlet stream that gradually steepened and eventually left us to work our way down an exposed expanse of open granite to the river below. Before out descent we saw a thin column of smoke far to our south, but soon after we arrived at the river the sky filled with smoke, the sun was almost blotted out, and ash began to fall.

Clearly we were downwind of a serious wildfire, but because we were deep in a canyon we had little idea of where it might be. It was a deeply unsettling experience to hike along the river in this mud-colored light with ash falling like light snow. Eventually we neared our destination and, as photographers inevitably do, we turned our attention to considering how to make photographs in and of these conditions. This photograph is a bit of the surface of a river, with reflections including weak sky, the brown of the smoke cloud, and dark areas reflecting surrounding canyon walls and vegetation.

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 | 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.

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

Lake, Ridges, Evening Light

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Lake, Ridges, Evening Light
Mountaintop trees stand above a sub-alpine lake, dome, and ridge in evening light, Yosemite National Park

Lake, Ridges, Evening Light. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Mountaintop trees stand above a sub-alpine lake, dome, and ridge in evening light, Yosemite National Park.

This photograph (and its appearance here) is a bit unusual for me, though not entirely unprecedented. It is a photograph that I have shared previously, back when I originally made it some years ago. During the last year and a half I have had plenty of opportunities to revisit older work. Mostly this has meant exploring raw file archives to locate work that was “left behind,” but which turned out to be interesting and valuable in retrospect — photographs that I felt deserved a first showing. But this case represents something different — the rethinking of a photograph that I thought I had finished.

Revisiting and revising one of my previously-shared photographs usually leads to some relatively obvious changes. But in this case I think that changes may be subtle. Theres a small change in how it is cropped, some new ideas about how to handle the foreground light, some important but small changes to the middle forest and peak just beyond the lake, and some new adjustments to the sky. In my view, it is perfectly natural and good to revisit the original interpretation of a photograph over time, a process that was perhaps more common in the film era.

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 | 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.