Tag Archives: water

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Morning, Subalpine Lake

October 30, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A granite peninsula holding small trees extends into the waters of a subalpine lake, Yosemite National Park

I made this photograph on our first real photography day of our early September backcountry photography trip in Yosemite National Park. There is a sort of life-cycle to any trip and especially for longer trips like this one. The entire first day of the “expedition” was spent loading vehicles, driving across California, and getting settled into first night accommodations in the eastern Sierra. The second day was a travel day — first a drive up to our trailhead, getting our gear to the packers who would take the majority of it in to our destination, leaving vehicles and starting the long hike, arrival and camp setup, and dinner… and the day was gone. So this third day of the trip was the first for serious photography.

The first day in a location where you will spend substantial time photographing is an interesting one, and the first morning is a very special time. After two days of transit, this is when photography begins. We arose before dawn, loaded up packs of camera gear, and headed down to the lake, each following his or her own path. It is a time of renewal and recognition — of the features and sensory elements of being in the Sierra high country and of focusing your “seeing” intensely. I began by first making an obligatory warm-up shot or two and then working my way around the west side of the lake, looking back across it toward the early morning sun as it eventually rose high enough to backlight trees and rocks. When I look at this photograph, the point of view and the elements in the frame remind me again of those first day sensations as we began our relationship with this lake and its surrounding terrain, a location we would photograph for the better part of a week.

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.

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Photographs: Chicago, Photographs: Urban/Street

Chicago River and Downtown Skyline, Morning

October 29, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Chicago River and Downton Skyline, Morning

Downtown Chicago skyline above the mouth of the Chicago River and Lake Shore Drive

I’m sharing this photograph not because it is a work of great photographic art but because it so clearly shows its subject, the entrance to the Chicago River, the bridge for Lakeshore Drive, and the core of tall towers along the river in central downtown Chicago, light by morning sun.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

East Carson River, Autumn

October 23, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Fall colors along the canyon of the East Carson River, California

Aspens are most certainly not the only sources of autumn color in the Sierra Nevada. There are many bush-like plants that can be quite colorful, such as the willows that may line high elevation creeks, and in the lower places along rivers cottonwood trees produce beautiful color just a bit later than the aspens.

This photograph was made along a section of the East Carson River not far from the tiny town of Markleeville in Alpine County, one of the least populated areas in the state. In this general area there is a transition from the higher country around the Sierra crest toward the high desert east of the range where rivers like this one end up. As I drove up the highway alongside the East Carson it was still early morning and shadows filled the bottom of the river canyon, where colors came from brush, cottonwoods, reflected blue sky and warmer colors reflected from higher canyon walls.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Pond and Autumn Aspens, Evening

October 15, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A grove of autumn color aspens reflected in an eastern Sierra Nevada pond

I saved my visit to this place for the final evening of the final day of this year’s aspen hunt. Although I had passed by the mouth of this canyon four days earlier, while heading to another location near the start of my trip, I had only glanced in from the main highway — but I could tell, both from experience and from looking, that there would almost certainly be some good color here later on. Although the color change seemed to start on a rather early schedule this year, later on the pattern seemed to become closer to the norm. Color started high, and by the time I made this photograph a lot of the highest elevation color was going or gone. (Not all of it though — even amidst lots of bare trees up high, I still came across scattered high elevation groves full of color.)

As the color transition continues, it moves to successively lower elevations, and some of the most protected east-side canyons can hold color even longer. In the past this has often been a decent late season location for color, but I’ve also been there when the color came and went early, for reasons I could not decipher. So on this day when I actually entered the canyon for the first time this fall, I wondered if the colors that I could see along the stream where it emptied into larger valley below might be all there was… or if the color would continue up higher. It turned out that the colors did continue, and in outstanding form! The majority of the trees had fully or nearly fully changed color, with a few other trees at either end of the transition — some still all or mostly all green, and a few that had gone to bare trunks and branches. Far up the canyon there are flooded meadows, and I made this photograph at the highest of these ponds.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: water

Morning, Subalpine Lake

Chicago River and Downtown Skyline, Morning

East Carson River, Autumn

Pond and Autumn Aspens, Evening

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