Tag Archives: water

Rocky Shoreline, Reflections

Rocky Shoreline, Reflections
Sky and high peaks reflected in the surface of a lake in rocky alpine country

Rocky Shoreline, Reflections. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sky and high peaks reflected in the surface of a lake in rocky alpine country

This is (yet another!) photograph from my September week in the John Muir Wilderness backcountry with a group of photographer/friends. We set up a base camp at a lake in a long valley running north/south, and photographed the immediate area and further subjects that we could reach on day hikes. The orientation of this valley gave us an unusual lighting condition — hours of blue hour light in the morning and early evening after the sun dropped below the tops of the two giant ridges to the east and west.

Our lake was mostly a fairly rocky place. The gentler portions of the shoreline featured small trees, often separated by open space and both rocky and meadowy areas. The more rugged side of the lake was the base of a gigantic talus field that extended far up the mountainside to the east. I made this photograph when light still illuminated the upper slopes of the ridge while the lake itself was in shadow. The effect was to make the landscape seem even more stark, so I photographed to emphasize the large forms of light and dark, and then chose to render it in black and white.


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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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Snow Field, Reflection

Snow Field, Reflection
A late-season snow field at the base of rugged cliffs, reflected in the surface of a High Sierra lake

Snow Field, Reflection. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A late-season snow field at the base of rugged cliffs, reflected in the surface of a High Sierra lake

I can say a few things concerning both the objective facts about this scene and about my subjective reaction to it. The facts: We walked to this lake frequently during our September photographic sojourn in the Eastern Sierra backcountry. It wasn’t far from our base camp at another nearby lake, and if we walked directly there it might take all of 10-15 minutes — though, as photographers, our walks are hardly ever direct, more often devolving into stop-and-go affairs as we are distracted by various subjects. The snow bank and the steep wall above the lake were most often in shadow, and by evening the light could become quite dim.

There are many ways I could (and perhaps did) photograph this subject, but here I wanted to focus on the contrast between the form of the bright snow field and the much darker surroundings of cliffs, talus, and shadowed lake. Late in the day a long shadow began along the talus field and gradually advanced across the lake, darkening the water and the surrounding forest and rocks. After sunset, my impression of the place was of stillness and oncoming darkness, and I wanted this version of the photograph to suggest these things.


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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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Eastern Sierra Stream, Autumn

Eastern Sierra Stream, Autumn
“Eastern Sierra Stream, Autumn” — Autumn colors line the banks of a small Eastern Sierra Nevada stream

This photograph is of one of those little places — you could easily pass right by it and miss it. I have, and I’ve even stopped nearby and not seen a photograph. This time I was heading up a canyon in cloudy conditions and light rain, and perhaps the unusual conditions helped me to see differently. In any case, as I drove past the area I noticed the red plants growing close to the ground, even though there were largely obscured by intervening trees.

I quickly turned around and came back, parked, and then spent some time poking around and looking. I finally ended up down along the bank of the stream, the closest I could get to the red plants, and I found a composition looking upstream toward more colorful plants and the white trunks of an aspen grove.


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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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Early Autumn Color, Lake and Mountain

Early Autumn Color, Lake and Mountain
Early autumn color along the shore of a Sierra Nevada alpine lake

Early Autumn Color, Lake and Mountain. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early autumn color along the shore of a Sierra Nevada alpine lake

One of the pleasures of photographing from a backcountry base camp is that I can roll out of my sleeping bag and climb out of the tent… and start photographing almost at my doorstep. We camped near this lake for a full week, and on several mornings and evenings I explored it, gradually pushing out my boundaries, traveling a bit further along and beyond its shoreline, and getting to know it in different light at various times of day.

I made this photograph on one of those morning walks, when I set out slowly towards the far opposite end of the lake near its outlet stream. I was in no hurry, taking time to observe and photograph as I walked. Eventually I made it to that further point, photographed a bit there, and turned around to start back toward camp, continuing to photograph. The lake remained in the shadow of the tall ridge to the left long after sunrise, and as I walked back the first beams of light reached the shoreline. In this photograph a lakeside willow bush is catching some of that first light.


See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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 | Facebook |
Email


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