Tag Archives: upper

Intertwined Trunks

Intertwined Trunks
Tightly laced tree trunks, Southern Sierra Nevada

Intertwined Trunks. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tightly laced tree trunks, Southern Sierra Nevada.

This is an older photograph that has languished in my raw file archives for nearly a decade. Back in 2010 I was on a long Southern Sierra backcountry trip with a group of friends — roughly speaking we made a giant semi-circle around Mount Whitney, starting southeast of that peak and coming out over a week later at a point considerably north. A milestone on this trip was realizing — finally! — that re-climbing that iconic peak is less profitable than spending time in many other equally beautiful places in the Sierra. At several points on this trip we found ourselves in lonely, less-visited spots, and I treasure the trip for that reason. These trees were at one of our campsites, in a location essentially right at timberline.

Everyone’s work habits are unique, but for me it is important to periodically go back and look through older photographs that didn’t “go anywhere” at the time. I inevitably find images that are worth the second look. I’ve often pondered how and why this happens. Among my theories: perhaps I simply moved on to quickly to other projects at the time, possibly I didn’t really understand how to “see” the image, my interests and perspectives have changed. Regardless, this is one reason that I’m hesitant to delete a lot of raw files — all too often I’ve gone back and found something that I was glad I kept!


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 | FacebookEmail

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


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

Lakeshore, Evening

Lakeshore, Evening
A few sunset clouds reflected in the quiet surface of a backcountry Sierra Nevada lake.

Lakeshore, Evening. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A few sunset clouds reflected in the quiet surface of a backcountry Sierra Nevada lake.

Periodically I find myself going back to my archives and looking through older photographs, typically images that I made years ago and sort of left behind as I went on to work on newer things. These reviews often have a couple of wonderful consequences. Often I rediscover a photograph that I had originally neglected, perhaps because it worked in a different way than what I originally imagined or possibly because I wasn’t patient enough at the time. The distance provided by a few years of time often allows me to see the image in ways I missed at first. In addition, these older photograph bring back wonderful memories — of the subjects, for sure, but also of the trips themselves and the people I traveled with.

I made this photograph on a long southern Sierra backcountry trip with a group of long-time backcountry buddies — folks I have backpacked with many times over the years. On this trip we were down to our core group of four, and we traveled into one of the highest, alpine regions of the range, into the upper Kern River drainage of Sequoia National Park. Those who know this region won’t be surprised to hear that we had to cross several very high passes, that we were out for over a week, and that we got into places where we saw very few other visitors. I made the photograph on a lovely, lazy evening, near a lake we ended up at almost by accident — a place that turned out to be utterly scenic, extremely quiet, and almost devoid of visible signs of humans.


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 | FacebookEmail

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


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

Soda Candy Luncheonette

Soda Candy Luncheonette
Street scene in winter light on the Upper East Side, Manhattan

Soda Candy Luncheonette. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Street scene in winter light on the Upper East Side, Manhattan

Today’s photo takes us back to the urban world again, and away from the world of winter migratory birds that I have shared more recently. The photograph is from our weeklong visit to New York City between Christmas and (almost) New Year’s Day. It was a cold week! As we usually do, we went out and wandered Manhattan quite a bit — hard to do street photography without going into the street! Daytime highs made it (barely, and not always) into the low 20 degree range, but we fought back by layering up and by stopping frequently for refreshments in warm places. Not that the latter is a bad thing!

I made this photograph on one of those cold days. We had queued up to get into the Guggenheim, but the line wasn’t moving at all. Standing there in the bitter cold and strong wind, the thought of finding a place with warm soup suddenly occurred to us, and we left the line and found food. Feeling warmer now, we headed back out onto Lexington and walked south. When I first spotted this place, somewhat interesting in its own right though not quite unique as a structure, the words on the sign caught my attention: “Soda Candy Luncheonette.” Then I noticed the nice light coming up Lexington and the interesting arrangements of pedestrians as they walked past.


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 | FacebookGoogle+ | LinkedIn | Email


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

Crosswalk, Upper East Side

Crosswalk, Upper East Side
Pedestrians in an Upper East Side crosswalk on a very cold winter day in Manhattan

Crosswalk, Upper East Side. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Pedestrians in an Upper East Side crosswalk on a very cold winter day in Manhattan

Another freezing day in New York, another visit to a museum, another walk, and more photography. This time our plan was to visit the Guggenheim, on the Upper East Side along Central Park. Because we tend to stay on Pacific time when we go to New York — instead of my usual 5:30 wakeup time, I wake around 8:30 — we ended up stalling on various little tasks until nearly noon. Then we stopped for coffee, followed by a walk to a subway at our Lower Manhattan location, and then a subway ride up to a stop on Lexington to the east of the Guggenheim. We arrived to find that lots of other people apparently had the same idea — there was a long line snaking around the corner. We joined the line, in 20 degree temperatures, and then simultaneously noticed that the line wasn’t moving and that we were increasingly freezing. We gave up, and headed east to find a warm place to get something to eat.

After lunch — soup, of course! — we set out again, but with no particular goal in mind. We headed south on Lexington, with a plan starting to form that would take us over to and perhaps through part of Central Park before we picked up another subway train at the lower end of the park. As we walked down Lexington we were headed straight into the sun, and its headlong light made the atmosphere glow, bounced light off of building windows, and cast long shadows from the approaching pedestrians on the crowded sidewalk and crosswalk.


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 | FacebookGoogle+ | LinkedIn | Email


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