Tag Archives: yellow

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

Merced River Boulder, Autumn

November 21, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A large boulder is exposed by low autumn water levels in the Merced River

On the final two days of October this year, I did what I often do at this time of year – make a visit to Yosemite Valley to photograph fall colors. As is the case with fall colors in many places in the west, the transition seemed to come a little earlier than usual, and this might have been just a bit too late for some colors (big leaf maples) and perhaps a bit early for others (cottonwoods) but overall a fine time to be in the Valley. (This season was a bit strange in many places in the west, including many where I often photograph. For example, the arrival of the fall aspen color was early, though it did hang on for a good long time.)

This scene along the Merced River says “autumn” in ways that are both obvious to anyone and perhaps less so unless you know the Valley a bit. In the obvious category are the colors of trees along the banks of the river, mostly big leaf maple and oak in this photograph. Other aspects include the very low water level and the quiet flow of the river. In the spring this section of the Merced can be a wild flood of snow melt runoff that rises toward the top of the large boulder – but so late in the season, especially in a very dry year like this one – the river has a much gentler and quieter personality. The light is also different – with the low sun angle there is no direct light at the bottom of the canyon here and none on the section of valley wall visible in the distance. The atmosphere has some of the same feeling that the river has – a bit hazy, little air movement, and at times a softer quality of 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: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Blue Shirt Pedestrians, Linear Landscape

November 16, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two pedestrians in blue shirts walk past architecture emphasizing vertical and horizontal lines

A photograph like this is a bit hard to explain, but I’ll try. At least a little bit. As is often the case, for some reason this structure – a parking lot – caught my attention. I like the texture of concrete when doing city photography, and this landscape of lines seemed a bit striking, and in fact it got me thinking again about the very linear nature of much of the urban environment. Aside from a few things – the green tree, the red card, and the people – essentially everything in this scene can be regarded as being a sum of horizontals and verticals, from the obvious vertical covering of the garage to the wires, to the street lanes and lane lines, to the sidewalk, and the rows of squares on the background building.

It occurs to me from time to time that there is something very unnatural about this, and it might even be a cause of the disconnect from the environment that can occur in such places. But as (pretty much) always, the constructed world is not perfectly linear. But still, to me, the two people walking along the sidewalk, whose blue attire also caught my attention, look very small and very passive relative to the constructed world they inhabit.

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

Autumn Cottonwood Trees, Meadow, Fog

November 11, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning fog drifts through a stand of cottonwood trees with golden autumn leaves, Yosemite Valley

Like essentially everyone who has photographed much in Yosemite Valley, I know this little stand of cottonwood trees very well. It is an obvious attractive photographic subject since its densely grouped trees stand apart from other trees in the middle of a meadow, its “perfect cottonwood-ness” is broken by the presence of a couple of other trees almost hidden within the stand, there are a variety of potential backgrounds for the small grove, at the right times it can be beautifully lit, and the meadow often forms beautiful ground fog early in the morning during certain seasons and conditions. Since the fall color of the trees seemed near its peak, I made a plan to be out there at one of the potentially ideal times on Halloween morning.

On the prior day I had decided on the spot from which I would photograph, with the idea being to make a fairly tightly cropped photograph of the trees with a bit of canyon wall in the background. With this plan in mind, I woke up in the darkness and arrived here well before sunrise and went directly to the spot I had picked out. I was very happy to find ground fog drifting over the meadow and frost on its dried grasses. I started photographing almost right away, before there was any direct light here or anywhere else in the Valley, and I planned to shoot right through sunrise and the point when the first direct light strikes the meadow and this group of trees. Before long, the first bit of sunlight came to the upper edge of the trees, and the light changed quickly as the beam of light from up near Half Dome moved down across the trees and began to cast alternating light and shadow across the meadow. This image from the series of photographs seems like the best combination of fog (which began to dissipate as the sun arrived), sunlight on trees and meadow, and background still in shade.

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

Black Oak, Meadow, Autumn

November 8, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A backlit black oak tree with autumn foliage stands in a meadow below Sentinel Rocks, Yosemite Valley

This black oak, like so many in Yosemite Valley, stands in a large grassy meadow. Although the autumn foliage of these trees may seem less spectacularly colorful than that of the big leaf maples and the cottonwoods, the black oak has a more subtle beauty in the fall. But when lit from behind, early or late in the day when the sun is low, the color of black oak leaves can be surprisingly intense. Off all the fall colors in the Valley, in some ways the combination of that of these oaks and the grasses of the meadows where they are found seems to most strongly speak of fall to me.

This single tree is in a meadow filled with black oaks. I would not be surprised to find that there are 100 of them here. On this afternoon I had gone to the meadow to photograph something different, a group of small cottonwood trees growing near the bank of the Merced River. Finishing that project, I was about to start back toward my car when I noticed that a short-lived beam of direct sun was coming down from an opening in the upper cliff walls and spotlighting this tree. Naturally, I changed my plans, took a little detour, and spent a few minutes with this tree.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: yellow

Merced River Boulder, Autumn

Blue Shirt Pedestrians, Linear Landscape

Autumn Cottonwood Trees, Meadow, Fog

Black Oak, Meadow, Autumn

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