Tag Archives: wilderness

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

Shoreline Rocks, Sierra Nevada

December 5, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Small plants grow on rocks near the shoreline of a sub-alpine Sierra Nevada Lake, Yosemite National Park.

Little gardens grow in these jumbles of rocks and boulders near the outlet stream of this sub-alpine lake where I spent nearly four days this past September. During this mid-September time frame the colors of the high country autumn are beginning to appear, as seen in the orange and brown colors of some of the leaves on the plants among the rocks.

I arrived at this lake late in the day, the rest of my party having arrived there earlier. They had the advantage of a pack train to carry most of their gear up here, but I was self-contained and schlepping the whole mess of backpacking and photography gear myself. I was beat when I arrived, and I first thought that I might just write off doing any photography that evening and just rest up and recuperate. But I started to feel a bit guilty about my laziness in the evening, and I went for a walk around the outlet stream of the nearby creek and made a few photographs in the soft evening light.

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, Photographs: Yosemite

Granite Ridge and Trees, Afternoon Light

December 3, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Afternoon light back-lights a glaciated granite ridge partially covered with trees, Yosemite National Park.

Late in the afternoon – almost more like early evening, actually, the atmosphere at this spot along the Tuolumne River valley in the Yosemite back-country was “complex” – both challenging to shoot and full of interesting and varied potential. You might be able to see in the upper right portion of the image that a good part of the sky was obscured by a thin gray layer of high clouds, and by looking at the very faint a low contrast view of the more distant mountains at the upper left it is clear that the atmosphere was quite hazy, especially when back-lit. Yet, there is sunlight slanting across the expanse of granite and trees on the foreground ridge, and this light picks off some of these trees.

This was the kind of lighting that requires some patience. And fortunately I had gotten myself to a beautiful spot on top of a granite “whaleback” (a low and long dome-like structure) above a small side valley beyond which this ridge was arranged with the more distant ridge in the background. Most of the time the light was what I’ve heard one of my friends simply describe as “blah.” The atmosphere was a bit hazy, most of the light was obscured by the high clouds (and the haze), and even in this quite beautiful spot most of the time nothing much stood out as a photograph.

Such scenes require – and can teach – patience. It helps to find yourself alone on a granite ridge without much else to occupy your time and with no other particular task at hand. It also helps if you have learned that there is nothing at all wrong with sitting quietly in one spot for a couple of hours and simply observing. And, if you have done these things before and have observed these scenes, you know that there is a possibility that even in light and landscape that might seem a bit “blah,” there is the potential for a momentary bit of light to create something worth photographing. This was a perfect afternoon for that sort of shooting.

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

Tuolumne River Canyon Below Glen Aulin

November 22, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

The Tuolumne River enters Tuolumne River Canyon below the Glen Aulin High Sierra Camp.

This photograph looks west from a rocky point along the Tuolumne River just below Glen Aulin in the Yosemite National Park back-country. In September I spent a total of four nights in this specific area and photographed in and around the granite bowl that rises from the river near the foreground rocks and spreads to the right of the area shown here. The photograph was made very late in the afternoon – it had been raining when I arrived at Glen Aulin but, as often happens in the Sierra, the clouds dissipated later in the day and the skies were starting to clear before sunset.

While my favorite Sierra landscape is at the elevations where the last small trees give way to alpine tundra meadows and the rocky slopes of the highest peaks, there is also something very compelling about these lower (from my point of view) elevation areas, and especially about this particular spot along the Tuolumne. Looking west from this point along the river I had the distinct feeling that I was standing more or less on a boundary between the higher and more alpine zones (exemplified by the Tuolumne Meadows area) and the beginnings of the lower areas in which I feel like I’m heading towards the Central Valley. Here, all of the really tall peaks are behind me (OK, some are to my right…) and before me the land overall drops towards the Valley, the slightly hazy light and air of which is in the far distance in this photograph.

Making this feeling even stronger for me is the fact that very close to Glen Aulin, the Tuolumne abruptly changes from a generally meandering river that descends very gradually for the most part past large meadows and forests to one that drops precipitously into an increasingly narrow and steep canyon surrounded by granite slabs and domes and peaks that begin to take on an appearance that reminds me of Yosemite Valley.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Mount Humphreys and the Sierra Crest, Dawn

October 30, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Dawn light falls on the snow-dusted summit of Mount Humphreys and the Sierra Crest above Bishop, California.

On this morning I paused along highway 168 on my way to photograph fall aspen color in the Bishop Creek Canyon area to photograph the first light on the Buttermilk Range and along the section of the Sierra crest near Mt. Humphreys and Center Peak. My main reason for stopping here was to photograph the Buttermilks, the rocky hills along the giant “fan” rising from Bishop toward the base of the escarpment of the eastern Sierra. The plan was to find a good vantage point, put a long lens on the camera, and then pick out various features of the range as the edge of the first light hit them.

With that in mind, I was set up here before dawn and standing around in the cold morning air waiting for the light to arrive. Obviously, before the dawn light can get down to the elevation of the Buttermilks it must first hit the peaks of the crest, and who can resist that kind of light? The very first light that just touched the tip of Mount Humphreys, near the right side of the frame, was almost too intense in comparison to the shadowed lower slopes, so I continued to wait until the light, still very saturated with color, illuminated the full upper faces of the crest and began to light up the lower peaks to the east.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: wilderness

Shoreline Rocks, Sierra Nevada

Granite Ridge and Trees, Afternoon Light

Tuolumne River Canyon Below Glen Aulin

Mount Humphreys and the Sierra Crest, Dawn

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