Tag Archives: winter

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

The Shadow Line

March 3, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The boundary between morning sunlight and shadow traverses granite slabs

These slabs on the lower face of the Glacier Point apron always attract me, especially in the morning. I go way back with them — many years ago when I was, for a short time, a budding rock climber, we climbed on them, testing the limits of our trust in friction. Today, when I’m in this section of the Valley early in the morning, I always watch for the arrival of the first sun on the slopes.

I was in a cold meadow before sunrise on this winter morning. Soon the first light began to touch the cliffs along the north side of the Valley, and then trees along the upper rim near Glacier Point picked up the light. It worked its way slowly down the immense face, and the light final streamed through gaps behind Half Dome and slanted across this slope and revealed the cracks and scallops on the weathered granite.

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

Forest, Cliffs, and Snow

February 28, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A snowy forest leads into the mountains between cliffs and spires

The iconic features of Yosemite Valley are famous with good reason, and they continue to impress even after many visits. But over time you discover that these are not the only things to be found here, and that in almost any direction you look it is possible to find something interesting, beautiful, or even stunning.

Winter conditions change everything. In places where it will be warm in a few months and people might float past on the river, during the cold season the view can sometimes take on an arctic or alpine character. I like searching for and photographing little vignettes in the landscape, subjects that only become visible when I pause and take the time to look at the familiar landscape more closely. I used a long lens to photographed this little scene of a snow filled gully between two rocky prominences, leading upward toward higher snow slopes.

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Wetland Pond, Reflected Sky

January 22, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Late afternoon light on a pond reflecting the winter sky

I made this photograph during our annual New Year’s Day visit to the migratory birds of California’s Central Valley, something that has become more or less a tradition during the past few years. The idea is to join a few like-minded friends to greet the literal dawn of the new year, and to then spend the day photographing. The only problem with this as a New Year’s Day celebration is that we have to get up at about 3:30 AM, making it somewhat difficult (or at least unwise!) to stay up until midnight the night before.

This time we arrived, as always, very early, and spent the morning working our way around the vicinity trying to figure out where the best locations would be for photographing the birds. The usual schedule has us photographing for a few hours into the late morning, then taking a sort of time out in the middle of the day — often including a nap to compensate for that early wake-up call — and then resuming the wild goose chase at some point in the afternoon. Late in the day we were still trying to decide where we wanted to be for sunset, so we drove a gravel road that took us past this pond on our way to a likely goose roosting spot — and I saw this beautiful reflection of the winter sky along the way.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Big Sur, Winter

January 17, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sediment from flowing streams and landslides colors the water along the Big Sur Coast near Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

Some viewers who know this coast very, very well might understand why this photograph could have been titled, “Not McWay Fall.” In an example of looking the “wrong” direction, this photograph looks north along the Big Sur coast in the afternoon, when the light comes in from the west and perhaps begins to warm a bit, and on a beautiful winter day, on the heels of a big storm, when the air is very, very clear and the water is intensely blue.

Looking closely you probably also notice some other colors in the water. Various things can color the coastal waters — seasonal or time of day variations, the quality of the light, reflections, algae, and much more. There are a few spots along this coast where the water is always a surprising color, for example where sandy shoals in shallow, protected water lighten it. Several things were at work here on this day. Coastal creeks were in full flow, carrying their sediment loads down to the coast and emptying into the ocean. In this particular location there was a very large and probably still active landslide that had delivered a lot of earth to the beach, where the surf was gradually pulling it into the water and staining the ocean brown.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: winter

The Shadow Line

Forest, Cliffs, and Snow

Wetland Pond, Reflected Sky

Big Sur, Winter

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