Tag Archives: yosemite

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

Burn Zone, Near Foresta

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Burn Zone, Near Foresta

Burn Zone, Near Foresta. Yosemite National Park, California. October 31, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trees, stumps, and boulders in a recently burned area near Foresta, Yosemite National Park, California.

The story behind this photograph is a sad one, and one that provokes a certain amount of anger. The small village of Foresta is just on the western boundary of Yosemite National Park, above El Portal and below the road into Yosemite Valley from the highway 120 northern park entrance. A number of years ago – seems like perhaps 15 or so, though I haven’t looked it up – a tremendous fire started near Foresta and burned quickly and very destructively through a mature forest that had gone too long without burning. Because of the build-up of litter on the forest floor, the fire burned unusually hot and not only consumed small trees and low-lying plants but also destroyed a complete mature forest between Foresta and Tioga Pass Road where it finally was stopped.

This was one of the fires that probably made clear the terrible risks forests were facing due to many years of fire suppression – these forests evolved in a world of periodic fires and smaller fires to clear out the undergrowth the inevitable big fire has so much fuel to feed upon that the damage to the forest is ultimately much worse. For this reason, Yosemite (along with other parks) has adopted a wise policy of letting natural fires burn out on their own. Personnel are dispatched to keep an eye on the fire and to ensure that it doesn’t get out of control or threaten people or structures, but otherwise the fires are allowed to burn naturally. The price of some additional late summer smoke is, I think, a small price to pay for a more healthy forest.

After that original fire, what had previously been a forest along this section of the road instead became an open area. At first many small plants and wildflowers took advantage of the sunlight and grew like crazy. Eventually larger trees began to grow and in the past few years it was almost possible to imagine that a forest like the original one might eventually return.

One day in August this past summer I was camped in the Ten Lake Basin to do photography. On the second to last day I decided to leave my base camp and instead plan a dry camp on top of a ridge above the Basin from which I had seen a tremendous panorama of the Sierra crest on my way in. I packed up, carrying extra water, and climbed the steep trail to the pass. But as I climbed I smelled smoke, and as I came to the summit I saw a plume of forest fire smoke to the west… in the direction of Foresta. I gave up on the photography and hiked on out. I eventually found out that NPS personnel had been conducting a “management fire” near Foresta (on a very hot and dry summer day!) when it got out of control. This “little fire” burned right out of the Foresta area and into the surrounding hills and valleys, eventually consuming thousands of acres… including a good portion of the area of the previous fire that had slowly been starting to recover.

The tragedies of this fire are several. First, it is troubling that those in charge of actions designed to lessen fire damage to the forest miscalculated so badly that they ended up destroying substantial areas of the forest they were to protect. Even worse, the recovery of this area has now been set back by years, and perhaps decades.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Edge of the Light – Yosemite Valley

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Edge of the Light - Yosemite Valley

Edge of the Light – Yosemite Valley. Yosemite National Park, California. October 31, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Late afternoon autumn light falls across a grove of trees on the Merced River with the cliffs of Yosemite Fall beyond.

On the weekend of October 31 and November 1 I made my annual “Yosemite Valley Fall Color” trip to The Valley – to photograph autumn subjects including the maple, dogwood, oak, and cottonwood trees. While some say that these trees may not provide the same kind of color found in New England, they still draw me back to the Valley every autumn.

This photograph was made in one of the busiest and most popular tourist viewpoints in the Valley, in Leidig Meadow near the chapel. On a busy high season day, perhaps hundred of people will briefly park their cars here, get out, point their cameras up, and make (another) photograph of Yosemite Falls. In some ways this sounds like just about that last place that I would want to photograph, but I’ve come to like the late afternoon light in this meadow, especially in the autumn as the grasses turn brown, the cottonwood trees along the Merced start to lose their leaves, and the low angle of the sun creates interesting back-lighting and shadows.

I’d like to say that I planned to capture exactly this lighting, with the edge of the sun/shadow line falling just across this band of trees and picking up the small tree to the left of the larger group, but that would be a bit of an exaggeration. In truth, I did plan to shoot the trees against the shadowed background, but I was thinking more about having the background cliffs in shadow than I was about the trees right behind the cottonwoods. So I was shooting something else when I happened to look up and see that these trees were just barely catching the last light and that the small tree on the left was set off from the others – so I quickly set up this composition and managed to make a few exposures before the light quickly faded from the trees.

Like so many lighting effects in landscape photography this was a fleeting moment. Far from being a sedate and relaxed process, capturing “edge” light like this is often a matter of being in the right place, getting exactly the right moment, and often requires not only good fortune but close attention to ones surroundings and very quick work!

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Commentary, News, Photographers, Publications

First Light: Five Photographers Explore Yosemite’s Wilderness

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So, you like landscape photography, right? And you are aware that some of the most beautiful photographic subjects can be found in the back-country of California’s Yosemite National Park, right? And you very much enjoy looking through and absorbing the work of photographers who know the place especially well, right?

You need to pick up a copy of First Light: Five Photographers Explore Yosemite’s Wilderness, published by Heyday Press.

The book features the wonderful photography of a group of photographers whose experience in the park is extraordinary and varied: Charles Cramer, Karl Kroeber, Scot Miller, Mike Osborne, and Keith S. Walklet. Right now copies of the book autographed by all five photographers are available from the Ansel Adams Gallery.

(For the record, I have no financial interest in this book and if you purchase through the links in my post I receive no compensation from the sale. I just like the book and the photographers a lot and think you might, too!)

Commentary, Locations, News

Last Gasps of Eastern Sierra Fall Color?

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Last week I decided not to head over to the east side for more aspen photography – a combination of still working over the many photographs I brought back from earlier visits, some other responsibilities, and continuing reports that the bizarre and unusual progress of fall color was continuing. (But see Michael Frye’s “Lazarus” blog post for hints of a different set of possibilities.)

Along those lines, the recent reports seem to fall roughly into two categories. On one hand we have continuing reports that the aspens are still turning to fall colors very, very late and, in some cases at least, reportedly going almost straight from green to brown or dropped leaves. On the other hand, during the past week I’ve seen reports and photographs of some possibly isolated but very striking aspen color. Without having been on the scene recently I’m going entirely by second- and third-hand reports… but it sounds like you might be able to find a few good trees still if you act quickly and are willing to look around a bit. (And don’t forget that not all trees are aspens – there are other fall color opportunities at lower elevations.)

My attention now turns to other subjects including other opportunities to photograph fall color. My target date for visiting Yosemite Valley to shoot meadows, oaks, dogwood, and maples in fall color has always been the very end of October or right around the first of November. That had been my plan again this year… but during the past week or so I’ve started seeing photographs and reading reports of some good fall color already appearing there. Is the next phase of the “Strange Fall of 2009” going to be early color in the Valley? I’m hoping to head up there this weekend to find out.