Tag Archives: yellow

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspens At The Shoreline

October 28, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A grove of shoreline autumn aspen trees reflects on the surface of a subalpine lake

We arrived before dawn at this little eastern Sierra Nevada lake because, well that’s what photographers do! Also we knew that it would be most effective to photograph aspen color at this location in the soft, pre-sunrise light and the shadowed light that follows before the sun rises above the peaks and shines harsh light on the scene. It was one of those wonderful autumn mornings when it actually feels like fall has arrived. The temperature was as low as 23 degrees, and we had to wear lots of layers as we went to work.

We began by photographing a familiar sight, a band of aspens that drops down the opposite mountainside, following a gully to the shores of the lake. I’ve photographed it so many times that I almost never simply make another photograph that includes the larger scene, and instead I now look for smaller components of the large scene that might be compositionally interesting. As the direct sun arrived on that subject I shifted my attention to other things that were still in the soft light, including this bit of the aspen grove right at the shoreline, reflected in the still early morning waters of the lake.

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

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspens and Conifers

October 24, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Fall color before sunrise in the Eastern Sierra Nevada

I had visited this place a few days earlier on a separate visit, and at that time the colors were still not fully developed. At that time I wasn’t sure I would be back, since I have photographed this area quite a few times in the past, and I figured that my subsequent visit might take me to different areas of the Sierra. However, I’m an opportunist and I often make decisions about where I’ll go and what I’ll photograph quite close to the last minute, responding to circumstances and conditions. And on this morning, a visit to this spot looked promising.

Each year the color change patterns are a bit different. A spot that might be green one year on a particular date may be in full color during another year, or it might simply lose its leaves without changing. While things tend to happen at fairly similar times each year — with some exceptions — the state of the trees at those points in time can vary. For example, I have come to this spot at about this time and found the lower portion of the grove almost devoid of leaves, likely in the aftermath of cold and wind. This time the color still looked good, thought I could tell that at the lower edges it wasn’t going to last a lot longer. I as also intrigued by the somewhat unusual band of green trees still found in the bottom of the ascending gully.

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

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Groves, Early Evening

October 21, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early evening light on aspen groves with fall color, Eastern Sierra Nevada

As with virtually all locations with fall color, especially the fall color of aspen trees, timing (and/or good luck about timing!) is everything. There are so many variables that can make or break a photograph of autumn color, and some of them are beyond our control. Precisely when does the color peak in a specific location? What are the effects of the preceding months of weather, from winter snows and summer rains to the temperature patterns? What about preceding days of weather — has it snowed, how cold has it been, have there been strong winds? On the day of the photograph, what are the clouds doing? Are you there at the ideal time of day — perhaps a time when there is some backlight on the trees and other distracting elements are perhaps less well-lit?

Sometimes it all comes together — or close enough — and you find a scene with beautiful color, few trees that have completely lost their leaves, perhaps a bit of green remaining, the light in the right place, and more. For what I was after I had a window of only a few minutes to make this photograph. You may have noticed that the evening shadow has already reached the very bottom of the frame, but that the light has softened and warmed enough to bring out the color in the trees. But what you cannot see in the photograph is that I came to this same location two prior times over the period of a week, one of them the previous night. On those visits it did not work quite right — clouds covered the sky, it was hazy, too many trees were green, near gale force winds were blowing, and more. A rule of landscape photography is that the more chances you give yourself, the greater the odds that you’ll be there when the elements all happen to fall together.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Grove in Shade

October 17, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A hillside grove of autumn aspens in early morning shadows

I think there may be at least a couple of things worth discussing about this photograph — both from a slightly technical point of view and from an “opportunity” perspective, as in what photographic opportunities might be available in this part of the Sierra when focusing on the subject of autumn aspen trees. The technical issue (though it really turns out to be an aesthetic issue in the end) is one that I’ve discussed before, namely the kinds of light in which one can photograph aspen and other fall color. This photograph was made in fairly deep shade, and the trees stand on a slope of a tall mountain that blocks the morning sun until several hours after sunrise. I went here largely because of that — and the beautiful trees! — because I wanted to photograph in this soft light. Photographing these trees in shade reduces the huge contrast in light levels between highlights and shadows that we must deal with when the trees are lit directly by the sun. The intensity of the colors can increase and the light fills in the shadows, revealing details that disappear in harsh midday light. (One challenge is handling the blue quality of light that comes from the open sky, but that is perhaps a topic for another post.)

The second observation has to do with the types of aspen trees found in the Sierra. People who have seen the huge groves to straight and tall aspens in places like Colorado and Utah often remark on the many small and twisted aspens in the eastern Sierra. They are right to do so — many of “our” aspens are shorter, the groves frequently (though not always) are limited in their extent, and the tall and straight trees are less common. However, that is part of what I like about the Sierra aspens — the variety of “aspen personalities” is remarkable, ranging from brilliantly colorful but very small scrub aspens to some examples of tall and straight trees with thick trunks. This photograph combines the two. The presence of the smaller foreground trees provides color in front of the revealed trunks of this grove of tall and straight trees.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: yellow

Aspens At The Shoreline

Aspens and Conifers

Aspen Groves, Early Evening

Aspen Grove in Shade

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