Tag Archives: water

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Sierra Lake, Submerged Rocks

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Sierra Lake, Submerged Rocks
By the shore of an Eastern Sierra backcountry lake with a ledge of submerged rocks.

Sierra Lake, Submerged Rocks. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

By the shore of an Eastern Sierra backcountry lake with a ledge of submerged rocks.

Recently I have had more than one excuse to go back and revisit photographs from previous years. First, this has been an attractive way to find “new old” work during this time of restrictions on travel. Second, I’m involved in a project (about which I can’t say more at the moment) that required me to spend a lot of time during the past month reviewing photographs from a particular subset of my Sierra Nevada photographs. It has been wonderful to relive a set of wonderful backcountry trips I took since about 2008 and, in the process, “discover” a lot of images that I had somehow left behind.

This is one of those photographs. I’ve often wondered about how it is that certain photographs seem to need to “age” for months or years before they make sense. In this case, I think what happened is that when I considered photographs from this place made on this day that I selected another image, worked my way through it, and then moved on. In essence, this one was “left on the cutting room floor” during that editing process. The scene is a high country lake — which lake hardly matters — where rocks under shallow, shoreline water contrast with the intense aqua color of the deeper water.

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

Rocky Shoreline, Reflections

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Rocky Shoreline, Reflections
Talus boulders and their reflection at the edge of a Sierra Nevada lake.

Rocky Shoreline, Reflections. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Talus boulders and their reflection at the edge of a Sierra Nevada lake.

Three summers ago a group of us (yes, THAT group) spent a week camped at a little backcountry lake on the east side of the Sierra Nevada. The lake is a pretty one, with forest on one side, rocks on the other, and a few areas of meadow and granite slabs here and there. All in all, a fairly typical sort of scene in the range. Beyond the lake itself, the valley that holds in also contains many other small lakes and is surrounded by ridges and peaks, all of which gave us plenty to photograph.

This photograph comes from the rocky side of this lake. A common pattern with high country lakes is for there to be some flat area(s) along one side and perhaps at the inlet and outlet streams, and for one side to be close to some sort of slope. Anyone who tries to circumnavigate such lakes is familiar with the difficulties of finding a way along that rocky side. The rocky slope next to this lake was exceptionally rough, with large boulders extending right down to the shoreline. What it lacked in “walkability” it made up for in reflections. A much higher ridge above the rocks left this area in shadow late in the morning, producing a nice blue tonality to the light.

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

Morning Shoreline

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Morning Shoreline
Boulders and forest reflected in the quiet water of a Yosemite National Park backcountry lake.

Morning Shoreline. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Boulders and forest reflected in the quiet water of a Yosemite National Park backcountry lake.

This photograph takes me back to 2014, when a group of us spent a week in the Yosemite backcountry. We first visited this lovely lake set in a forested bowl not far from the edge of a big canyon, in an area with lots of beautiful granite slabs, a nearby overlook, and early autumn meadows. We left this spot after a few days and set up another base camp halfway back to our trailhead.

The lake is not a large one, and almost every morning or evening wander along its banks ended up being a circumnavigation. One shoreline was mostly forested, another was dotted with granite boulders, and a smaller area near the outlet stream was more open and flat. I photographed this scene one early morning just before the light of the rising sun managed to angle down to the shoreline.

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

Morning Shoreline

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Morning Shoreline
Early morning light approaches the rocky shoreline of a backcountry Yosemite lake.

Morning Shoreline. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early morning light approaches the rocky shoreline of a backcountry Yosemite lake.

With this photograph we are back in the Yosemite National Park backcountry at a lake that I’ve visited many times, including this occasion more than a decade ago when I joined a group of friends and photographers here fo a few beautiful early fall days. This late-september and early October period is my favorite in these mountains. Most of the crowds have left, especially in the backcountry, the mosquitos are gone, and most days are beautiful and filled with warm autumn light. (Of course… occasionally it does snow…)

This photograph is part of a series of images I have shared recently, all made on a morning spent walking around the perimeter of this lake. The earlier photographs were made before the direct sunlight arrived on the scene, but in this one the first early morning light has arrived on granite slabs just above the shoreline.

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.