Tag Archives: water

Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Rocks and Reflections, Merced River

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Rocks and Reflections, Merced River

Rocks and Reflections, Merced River. Yosemite Valley, California. February 16, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Rocks and reflections from sunlit cliffs in the Merced River, Yosemite Valley, Callifornia.

This is a major re-working of a photograph I made last winter on a very cold morning in the Valley. I had been photographing nearer to the upper end of the Valley and as the sun rose higher I decided to head down toward Bridalveil fall to shoot in the border between sun and shadow. I was almost to Bridalveil and driving along a shaded section of the road (Southside Drive, which is normally not open to traffic headed this direction) when I saw an area of exposed rocks in a deeply shaded area with the surface of the river illuminated by the brilliant golden reflection from the fully sunlit cliffs above on the north side of the Valley. I found a marginal parking space alongside the road and set up with a long lens and looked for interesting compositions among the rocks.

There is a funny story to add to this. As I was shooting, as often happens when one sets up near a roadway with a "pro-looking" gear (hey, all it really seems to take is a tripod), other visitors began to pull over to see what the photographer was shooting, jumping out of their cars with cameras in hand. This in a very dark section of the canyon. With me using a very long lens. Pointed straight down at some boring rocks in the river. Waiting. For something. Quite a few of them just shook their heads, looked at me like I was nuts, got back in their cars, and drove on. :-)

keywords: California, Landscape, National Park, Place, Season, Travel, Winter, valley, merced, river, reflections, swirls, rocks, boulders, current, california, usa, travel, scenic, landscape, water, stock

Commentary, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Cascade in Lee Vining Canyon, Autumn Snow (black and white)

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Cascade in Lee Vining Canyon, Autumn Snow (black and white)

Cascade in Lee Vining Canyon, Autumn Snow (black and white). Sierra Nevada, California. October 12, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Cascade on Lee Vining Creek on an autumn afternoon following an early snowfall.

I’ll make the text short this time since yesterday’s post included the same photo – and the backstory – in color. So this is a black and white version of the same photograph from Lee Vining Canyon. I thought I’d try this since a) there wasn’t really a lot of color in the scene and b) the “cold” effect of the scene seems to work fairly well either way.

keywords: lee vining, creek, canyon, cascade, water, fall, waterfall, blur, motion, forest, ice, snow, fall, autumn, fall, october, cold, tree, bush, rock, boulder, log, scenic, travel, landscape, stock, california, usa, sierra, nevada, tioga, pass, yosemite, national park, black and white

Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Cascade in Lee Vining Canyon, Autumn Snow

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Cascade in Lee Vining Canyon, Autumn Snow

Cascade in Lee Vining Canyon, Autumn Snow. Sierra Nevada, California. October 12, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Cascade on Lee Vining Creek on an autumn afternoon following an early snowfall.

On my second trip to the eastern Sierra this fall – a much less successful trip than the first one a week earlier – I visited Lee Vining Canyon in the late afternoon, after the sun had retreated behind the very high peaks around Tioga Pass, leaving the bottom of the canyon in shadow. My last stop in the canyon was at this well-known cascade near the Bend campground. I did several long exposures of the cascade so that the water would diffuse. As you can see, the fall foliage here was less spectacular than in some other years, but the recent snow on the branches and the creek bank along with the frozen water under the overhang at the upper right created a wintery quality in the scene.

keywords: lee vining, creek, canyon, cascade, water, fall, waterfall, blur, motion, forest, ice, snow, fall, autumn, fall, october, cold, tree, bush, rock, boulder, log, scenic, travel, landscape, stock, california, usa, sierra, nevada, tioga, pass, yosemite, national park

Commentary, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Snow Squall, North Lake and Piute Crags

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Autumn Snow Squall, North Lake and Piute Crags

Autumn Snow Squall, North Lake and Piute Crags. Sierra Nevada, California. October 4, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Autumn snow falls on Piute Crags above the fall foliage at North Lake. Sierra Nevada, California.

This photo marks – knock on wood! – the return to more a regular schedule of posting new photographs.

As always, there is a bit of a story behind the photograph. Last weekend (the first October weekend of 2008) I managed to do one of my annual aspen chasing expeditions, timed to catch the trees as they change from green to golden, yellow, red, orange, and a thousand intermediate hues. I left the Bay Area on Friday afternoon and drove over Tioga Pass, stopping there for a moment to feel the force of the first incoming Pacific storm of the season. After dropping down from the pass and stopping for dinner at Whoa Nellie Deli I continued on to Bishop, where I checked into a motel at 9:30.

I wasn’t certain what the next morning would bring since the weather report called for the passage of the weather front and then some showery weather and dropping snow levels. When I left Bishop well before dawn the stars were out, so I was optimistic. As I drove west and up into the Bishop Creek drainage, however, the clouds increased, and by the time I arrived at North Lake before 7:00 a.m. it had clouded up completely. No problem, I thought, the air is still and I like shooting in overcast conditions, especially with the saturated colors of the aspens. I got out of the car, put my camera on the tripod, grabbed the rest of my gear, and started towards a spot with a good shot. Within moments the wind whipped up and it began to rain, very quickly turning to wet snow. I was quickly back in the car, hoping to wait it out and see what developed.

Before long there were breaks in the clouds, and although the cold wind was blowing like crazy and there was still some intermittent precipitation, I decided that the conditions were special enough that I’d better get out there and start shooting. (While I can imagine more comfortable conditions for photography, sometimes the most interesting conditions are not comfortable.)

Eventually I made a fairly extensive set of photographs from various areas along the shoreline of North Lake. This one was made near the outlet of the lake, looking back across the nearby grassy shoreline, and past wildly colored aspen trees to the more distant Piute Crags, where a snow squall was partly obscuring the summit.

keywords: fall, autumn, storm, squall, snow, piute, crags, north, lake, bishop, creek, aspen, grass, meadow, water, tree, forest, branches, cloud, scree, talus, landscape, scenic, stock, nature, wilderness, shore, shoreline