Tag Archives: white

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

Aspen Grove, Spring

January 24, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light filters through an eastern Sierra aspen grove on a spring morning.

I often photograph the eastern Sierra aspens when they change colors in the fall, but these groves are appealing in every season – whether bare branches in snow, with green leaves quaking in the summer breezes, turning gold in fall, or with new leaves emerging in late spring.

I photographed these on one of those late-spring days. I had been up much earlier to photograph another subject elsewhere, and then returned to my camp site a bit later in the morning. This is a camp that I often use when photographing in the area east of Yosemite, so I know its surroundings quite well. The area is full of aspen trees, an there are a few small groves along a nearby section of the road that I often walk to. On this morning I stopped on my way back from that other place, just pulling over to the side of the road to shoot as the morning sun light was just arriving at this grove as the sun rose above the surrounding peaks.

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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Death Valley and Trail Canyon, Morning

January 16, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dawn light comes over the Black Mountains to illuminate Death Valley and Trail Canyon at the base of the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park.

Sometimes I don’t know at the time of exposure whether or not a photograph might end up as a color or a black and white image. However, I saw this scene as being black white as I made the photograph. It was made just a bit later than a photograph of a similar scene that I posted recently, and by this time the intense dawn color was gone and replaces by more subdued tones and far less saturated color. However, by now the early sun light was beginning to directly strike the lower slopes of the foreground canyon.

The large canyon in the foreground at the base of the two dark ridges is part of a complex sometimes called Trail Canyon. At one time there was a road up the canyon to the area near where I made the photograph – from what I hear it provided access to a mine down in the canyon. Some years ago the road washed out in several places, and the park’s policy now is to mostly let these old tracks simply slide into oblivion, thus allowing the terrain to revert to wilderness. This canyon, like many along the lower reaches of the major mountain ranges of the park, intrigues me with its huge gravel fan and in the way that it breaches the incredibly rugged mountains of the Panamint Range.

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

New Snow, Forest

January 11, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

New fallen snow covers trees and ground in a Yosemite Valley Forest.

This is a nearly five year old photograph from a magical early March visit to Yosemite Valley back in 2006. (Perhaps the subject attracts me right now because it contrasts with the current snow-free state of The Valley and much of the Sierra in this strange year of potential drought.) March is an interesting time in low-elevation areas of the Sierra like the Valley – while you could have a nice, sunny early spring-like day you could just as easily encounter a late-season storm, and the latter is what I encountered when I arrived on this morning.

The first thing I photographed when I arrived was the snow-covered Valley as seen from the famous Wawona Tunnel View. That scene is, indeed, a cliché – but sometimes when the conditions are right, as they were on this morning, I’ll head straight to such an iconic place and remind myself just why it is iconic! After finishing up there I headed back into the Valley and I recall that I finally just pulled over, got out of the car, and decided to set out on foot looking for interesting winter scenes in the fresh snow. I can’t even say exactly where this spot was, though I am fairly sure it was more or less along the Merced River somewhere – how’s that for a lack of precision!? But it didn’t really matter, as the subject here was not some specific place but more the sort of morning it was with new snow coating the trees and gentle winter light filtering down through the forest canopy.

Happy New Years and best wishes for a great 2012!

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

Spring Trees, Yosemite Valley

January 7, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

New spring growth comes to a grove of trees in a Yosemite Valley meadow.

This week, in the middle of winter, I have been going through older photographs, both looking for images I missed and deleting some that I no longer need to keep. Among the photographs in this batch is a set that I made two years ago on a spring visit to Yosemite Valley, when waterfalls were flowing and the trees and meadows were just coming back to life.

There are groves of beautiful curving trees like these in a number of meadows in The Valley, and I always love to photograph them when back-light silhouettes their trunks and branches and highlights the new growth high in the trees. On this morning there was just enough haze in the atmosphere to mute the details of the steep cliffs along the far side of the Valley beyond the trees and the meadow.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: white

Aspen Grove, Spring

Death Valley and Trail Canyon, Morning

New Snow, Forest

Spring Trees, Yosemite Valley

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