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You've guessed it... in the garden.
Great little characters that make a lot of noise for their size.
Eastern Sierra Aspens. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
Late-season Eastern-Sierra aspens in green, yellow, and orange
With this post I interrupt the recent stream of New England fall color photographs to bring you… California fall color. Our productive trip to photograph the beautiful fall color in (mostly) New Hampshire cut into the time I would usually spend in the Sierra during the aspen color season, but I wasn’t about to miss it entirely. So I managed a four-day trip to the “East Side” last week, visiting several promising locations for aspen color, among other things. As a result, I’ll eventually have a bit more to say about two subjects: a comparison between the East and West Coast experiences, and the prospects of finding Sierra color after the middle of October.
As I post this year’s Sierra aspen photographs, you’ll probably notice that I made many of them in soft light: near dawn or dusk, in the shadow of nearby mountains, or under some degree of cloudiness. Despite my love of backlit trees, this is my favorite kind o light for photographing the fall colors. To me the colors seem richer, and I can maintain more shadow detail than I typically get in the harsher direct sunlight. I made this photograph late in the day, on the east side of the range, shortly after the sun had dropped behind the Sierra crest.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
An Ancient One. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
An ancient bristelcone pine standing alone on a rocky ridge, White Mountains.
During my recent trip to photograph Eastern Sierra fall color I spent one day high in the White Mountains. For those who may not be familiar with this range (one of multiple “White Mountains” ranges in the USA!), it lies to the east of the central Sierra Nevada, running south from roughly Boundary Peak, the tallest in Nevada, to Westgard Pass, which separates the range, somewhat arbitrarily, from the Inyo Mountains. It is a high, remote, and largely unvisited range that is quite dry, being in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada. Likely in part for this reason it it also lacks the rugged, sculpted peaks of the Sierra, and much of its high country is more of a rounded moonscape. It is known as one of the prime locations for bristlecone pines.
These are, as some you you likely know already, remarkable trees. Some of them may be among the very oldest trees — some may be close to 5000 years old. Surprisingly perhaps, the oldest are those that grow in some of the most rugged and least hospitable places. It seems that the struggle strengthens them, and these “old ones” are usually characterized by resistance to exposure and the appearance of being more dead than alive — the trees sacrifice the majority of their structures in order to sustain a few remaining branches. Their remarkable character and great age always lead me to slow down and ponder…
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
This striated caracara sits perched atop a large rock in the middle of the rookery where I photographed black-browed albatross and rockhopper penguins. It routinely flew slowly over the colony or viewed the colony from a lookout such as this, hoping to spot unguarded eggs or chicks, or dead birds.
They have a wide ranging diet: 'Recorded prey species include penguin adults and chicks, brown skua, seal pups such as the South American fur seal and Southern elephant seal, blackish cinclodes, various shellfish, and eggs from nesting seabirds including penguins, cormorants; among many other species.' That was from Wikipedia.
There were also a number of turkey vultures frequenting the area.
Though photographed in Brazil, this striking raptor is the same species found in the southern U.S., particularly Texas and Florida. The Crested Caracara belongs to the falcon family, but its bold stature and soaring flight often lead people to mistake it for a hawk. Unlike typical falcons, it often scavenges like a vulture, foraging on carrion as well as hunting small animals, making it a fascinating blend of predator and opportunist.
Ain’t no hawk, it’s a caracara,
Wears the dust like it's mascara.
Ain’t no drama, no curtain call
Just dines on the dead in a free-for-all.
Looks like a hawk, eats like a vulture,
Caracara ain’t got no culture.
Winter Dawn, Panamint Mountains. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.
In dawn light, the Panamint Mountains rise from Death Valley to snow-covered Telescope Piak.
At the current time many road (and the locations they access) in Death Valley National Park are closed as a result of earlier flooding and washouts. Before I went there this past week I was aware of some closures, but when I arrived I discovered that some of my planned destinations were unavailable. I changed plans, improvised, and still found plenty to see and do in the park, and my list of planned locations remains for my next visit.
If plans had not changed, I would not likely have come back with this photograph. I often make relatively last-minute decisions about where to photograph based on light and sky conditions, and when I noticed that the air was clearer than usual — important given the vast distances in this park — I headed to a location with a view of the first morning light on the Panamint Mountains and their snow-capped summit of Telescope Peak. To give some idea of the distances, the highest peak is perhaps roughly twenty-five miles from my camera position.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Lenticular Clouds, Alpenglow Reflections. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
Two lenticular clouds in the alpenglow above the Sierra Nevada crest, Yosemite National Park.
This photograph comes from her the end of the spectacular afternoon and evening that I’ve been posting about recently. To quickly recap, I saw lenticular clouds forming over the crest earlier in the day, headed to this spot that I had scoped out previously, then photographed all the way from pre-golden hour through sunset and on into the early dusk. This photograph was made just after sunset, when the pink light was still coloring the sky and the landscape but the blue of evening was gradually taking over.
If you head out into the landscape often to photograph, you will experience a lot of fine but unremarkable days. With care, you can make good photographs in those conditions. You’ll also experience a few “meh” days when nothing happens. (Deny all you want, but you’ve experience it!) But it seems like this earns you an occasional luminous miracle, when everything comes together and amazement ensues. If there is a downside to this, it might be having to explain to people that, “yes, this really happened!” That’s a small price to pay.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Sea of Dunes. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
Undulating patterns of overlapping sand dunes extending into the distance.
Although sand dunes occupy a tiny fraction of the area of Death Valley National Park, they seem to be the most common photographic subject. They loom large in our sense of the place, perhaps in part because sand dunes themselves are evocative of a sort of alien landscape. But they also present a sort of visual blank slate that can be seen in myriad ways and which is open to diverse interpretations. We can approach them as “grand landscapes” or as intimate landscapes, as near abstractions, as backdrops for photographs of people and wildlife and more. I think I began by seeing them as grand landscapes but now find it more interesting to seek out little fragments of form and color.
One thing we perhaps don’t speak about enough — probably because it makes everyone a bit uneasy — is the extent to which photographers treat dunes as a photographic starting point rather than an end point. By this I mean to acknowledge that most interesting, compelling photograph of sand dunes involves a lot of “interpretation,” much of it done via post-processing techniques. To be sure, I regard this as conceptually legitimate and even necessary, and I embrace it in my own photography, regarding post-processing to be at least as integral to photograph-making as setting up the camera and clicking the shutter.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Trees in Flooded Meadow. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.
Yosemite Valley trees stand in a meadow flooded with spring snow run-off.
At first glance, this photograph perhaps looks more like something from the Florida Everglades. But as the spring snow melt switches into high gear many typically dry places in California are distinctly wet. During my pre-Memorial-Day visit to Yosemite Valley many meadows and even low forest areas were flooded by the rising Merced River. More than once as I hiked in the Vally my trails simply disappeared under water!
I know this spot well and have photographed here in the past — when it was a dry forest along the banks of the Merced. But this week the water came almost to the roadway and flooded the trail in places. In fact, I had to set up on some rather spongy ground in order to frame this scene.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Notice the fishing pole next to Heron ?
That's his pole !
He waits for the line to go down, someone yells out " Heron caught one" One of the guys will reel it in as the Heron dances around all excited. Once they throw the stunned fish back in, the Heron snags it up. Fun to watch. Been going on for years :)
Sand Dunes, Light and Shadow. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A curving sand dune boundary between light and shadow, Death Valley National Park.
This particular curving dune section became the subject for a series of photographs I made on this morning. It is a remarkable form, traveling higher and lower on the dune that what you can see in this photograph — a sort of “s-curve plus.” I have previously shared a couple of other photographs of it that were interpreted in color, photographs that show a larger portion of the dune. This one focuses on a small area near its base.
The light here was fascinating. The dunes are backed by a taller ridge, so the morning light does not arrive here until some time after dawn. At sunrise the light on these dunes is fully shadowed, and it has the blue tones of reflected sky. But as the sun rises it eventually sends its light across that ridge behind the dunes, and streamers of light being to slant across the dunes features, creating quickly evolving patterns of light and shadow.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Two Red Leaves. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A pair of very red autumn aspen leaves in a grove in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.
This pair of leaves reminds me just a bit of the photograph on the cover of my book, California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra. Like that photograph, this one was made while getting “up close and personal” with autumn aspen leaves, wandering around inside of a very colorful grove in the Eastern Sierra.
Although my opportunities to photograph fall color this year were limited by wildfire conditions and the challenges of traveling during the pandemic, I did get to the "East Side" for a few productive days. In fact, given the challenges while I was there (which I have described in other recent posts) I'm actually pretty happy with the results. It certainly helped that I managed to arrive at peak color at the location where I ended up, and that this year seemed to produce much more colorful trees than usual, with lots of orange and red colors.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
Sandhill Cranes, Tule Fog. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A flock of lesser sandhilll cranes in a wetland pond on a foggy winter morning.
Unlike most winter drivers in California, I was thrilled when I ran into serious fog about an hour before arriving at my intended photography location. I chose this day to visit the Great Central Valley specifically because I hoped to photograph in such fog. As I continued to drive, dropping down into the valley from surrounding hills, the fog only got thicker. By the time I arrived at my destination is was so thick that the roadway was. barely visible in the pre-dawn darkness. I turned off the main road and spent some time looking for birds, finally finding a flock of cranes standing in a shallow pond.
To read about nature photography and photographers, you might occasionally get the mistaken idea that it involves non-stop action and compelling scenes. You would be wrong. Those tend to the exceptions, and they are often separated by long periods of stillness and quiet. I don’t regard that as a problem and, in fact, this is part of the appeal of these places. The fog amplifies this effect, muting sounds and restricting visibility to a small radius. I stopped and slowly and patiently watched these birds, barely visible at times in the fog, making occasional photographs as they assembled themselves in interesting compositions.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
posting for Saturday Self-Challenge for today's theme something you are pleased with
I noticed the squirrel plundering the bird feeders yesterday and felt sure I would miss the shot.
No camera handy and the wrong lens when I found one.
Had to shoot through glass as he would be off if he heard the patio door open.
He was pretty much in motion all the time.
Of the 8 shots taken in just over a minute only 2 were OKish but needed a heavy crop and much processing.
Definitely something I am pleased with.
p.s. I got to wondering why the squirrel has a white tummy. A Google search gave me this:
Countershading, or Thayer's law, is a method of camouflage in which an animal's coloration is darker on the top or upper side and lighter on the underside of the body. This pattern is found in many species of mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, and insects, both in predators and in prey.
Cranes in Fog. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A group of lesser sandhill cranes in thick morning fog, California Central Valley.
Awake almost three hours before sunrise, I headed to the kitchen to make coffee — enough to wake me up and enough to fill a thermos for later. I had mostly packed the car the previous night, so I just had to grab a small bag and head out the door to begin a two-hour pre-dawn drive to a place where I expected to find migratory birds and plenty of tule fog, two subjects that I chase during the winter months. The fog began a half hour before I arrived at my destination, and when I arrived as the first light came to the sky I heard thousands of birds in the distance.
At first it was too dark and the atmosphere too opaque for photography, so I headed out to find the source of the sounds. Soon I encountered a large flock of snow geese which departed a moment later. Moving on I got to a spot where I could hear the easily recognized sound of cranes nearby. I could just barely see them though the thick fog, but I stopped and waited, and as the fog drifted a bit I was able to spot them and make a few photographs of a group standing in shallow wetlands.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Colorful Strata. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
Colorful badlands strata in morning light, Death Valley National Park.
This subject may look familiar if you have been following my posts recently. It is a portrait-orientation composition of a feature that I also photographed in landscape orientation. (You might also think it looks a lot like a somewhat iconic feature in Death Valley — it does, a bit, but it is not the thing you may be thinking of.) This is a sort of photograph that I make frequently, a small “excerpt” of a much larger landscape scene, photographed with a long focal length lens. The just-arrived early morning light warmed the colors a bit and brought out the pink and blue tones of the layers.
These particular sorts of colors in the desert landscape have often challenged me as a photographer. They are geologically fascinating, but they are also often quite subtle, at least to my eye. In all but the best light they seem almost too faint to come through in a photograph. Some photographers compensate by significantly enhancing the intensity of the colors, but the result of that rarely satisfies me. Some particular qualities of the light made it work this time. Because it was shortly after dawn the light retained a warmer coloration. Some high, thin clouds muted and softened the light a bit. The band of darker material at the bottom contrasts with the lighter tones and with the colors.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
The Storm Clears. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
A Sierra Nevada summer storm clears at sunset.
Before I get too far into the background of this photograph, has anyone else noticed that the ways to title a photograph of (another) clearing storm are… limited? That aside, this was one of the most spectacular Sierra backcountry evenings I have experienced. After essentially two days of rain, some of it extremely heavy, the storm finally began to break up in the late afternoon, and we were able to venture out to photograph. I began by photographing the post-storm fog that was drifting around the valley, but before long the thinning clouds to the east began to put on a wildly colorful show. As that finished I turned my attention back toward the ridge to our west. The fog and clouds there were breaking up, too, and the very last sunlight of the day back-lit clouds above the crest.
This was not an easy photograph, both to “capture” at that moment and to work with in post. As you may be able to imagine, technical challenges included a very wide dynamic range, great contrasts in coloration, the position of the drifting fog, and more. Among other compensations, now when I look at this photograph I am transported back to the sights and sensations of that wonderful evening.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Sandhill Cranes, Morning Flight. © Copyright 2022.G Dan Mitchell.
A flock of lesser sandhill cranes takes to the air in early morning light.
It was late February when I made this visit to Central Valley wetlands to photograph migratory birds, mainly geese and sandhill cranes. From what I can tell, they tend to depart for their northern homes in early to mid-March, so I planned to squeeze a couple more visits while they were still here for their winter stay. That’s not the only reason, though, for visiting them at this point in the season. It also seems to be the time when they are the most lively, and most likely to be found in large groups that often remain quite active all day long.
As per my usual plan, I arrived a half hour before dawn and set up my camera equipment in the near darkness. Then I headed out into the surrounding wetland terrain, looking for subjects that might work in the first light of sunrise. I soon found groups of sandhill cranes standing in shallow water. Although it wasn’t in the forecast, there was a bit of low tule fog, just enough to soften the light a bit. As the cranes began to fly out from the pond they rose into the reddish first light of sunrise.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Cloudscape With Birds. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
Migratory birds fill the winter sky against a backdrop of clearing storm clouds.
Yes, it is a little bit difficult to see the birds in this photograph. (If you have the option, you may want to view it larger.) But in a way, that is kind of the point — to set the very small and very numerous birds against that grand scale of this California Central Valley winter cloudscape. When photographing birds I almost always wish I could get closer — but there’s also inevitably a moment when I am moved by the distant view a sky filled with thousands of birds.
I made this photograph on New Year’s morning, shortly after the first dawn of 2023. In order to arise before dawn I had to be in bed well before midnight. (I suppose that there was a time when I might have stayed up until midnight and gotten up before the sun!) As wonderful as it was to greet the new year in the company of thousands of migratory birds, it was even better to be in the company of a wonderful little band of photographers and friends who gather together on every New Year’s Day.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Blossoms, Almond Orchard. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.
Almond trees blooming in California’s Central Valley.
On this early March morning I was out in Central California photographing the last of the season’s geese and a few of their feathered colleagues. Because of the recent heavy rains there were pools of water everywhere. This provided the birds with more than the usual number of ponds, and many of them chose to land it places inaccessible to me. Eventually I decided to look around for other things to photograph.
As I headed up a nearby road I noticed that the vast orchards were blooming. It is quite a sight, and I understand that these regions are now starting to promote the almond blossom season as an event. The location I visited was fairly remote, and the road I took to this orchard was not one that many city folks would want to drive! I pulled over next to an orchard and photographed the backlit blooms.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Sunset Fog and Clouds. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
Sunset fog and clouds above an Eastern Sierra Nevada lake after a storm.
As I do my year-end traverse of photographs from the preceding year I often find things that were left behind. This is one of those photographs. It comes from a weeklong backcountry photographic sojourn in the Eastern Sierra with a group of friends/photographers. We set up a basecamp and photographed the heck out of our surroundings during that week, devoting more time to the area than we could on a typical point-to-point backpacking trip.
Since I’ve told the story here before, I’ll keep it short — but we lived through the worst summer rain storm I’ve experienced in the Sierra. Twenty-four hours later the storm finally cleared late in the day, and this bit of late sunset light lit up the layers of clouds and fog to the east. It was an astonishing evening, and my photographs individually contain only parts of the remarkable whole.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Beneath The Overhang. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
High overhanging walls of a narrow desert canyon, Death Valley National Park.
This is a remarkable spot in a lovely desert canyon in Death Valley National Park. After hiking up a wash for some distance and navigating around a minor impediment, the path suddenly enters the “narrows” — sections of the canyon with very high walls only feet apart where little light manages to find its way down from above. Entering the soft light, shades, and quiet of these places is always a special experience.
I have presented almost all of my photographs from my recent pair of visits to the park as color photographs. It is hard to forego color with these subjects, given the remarkable variations in the color of the landscape and the light in the desert. But here I felt that a black and white rendition made sense and suggested those characteristic feelings from being in this deep canyon.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Late-Season Aspens, Evening. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
Late-season aspen groves in the early-evening shadow of the Sierra crest.
The light for this photograph was somewhat unique. I was just east of the Sierra crest at an elevation of about 8000′ or so. The sun had just dropped below the crest, and the direct sunlight was gone. However, clouds above the peaks were still directly lit by the sun and quite bright. The result was that I worked in the soft shadow light, but the trees were still gently backlit by the light from those glowing clouds. This gave a bit more directionality to the light than might have otherwise been the case, and the soft backlight enhanced the colors of the trees.
This location is one of the more fascinating and unusual in the range, though it is easy to overlook it. While the crest rises high to the west, here the terrain is on a boundary between high desert sagebrush country and the very beginning of foliage that is more characteristic of the mountains. I think that the east side location, with its relatively less moisture, has a great effect on this. While I tend to think of aspens as mountain trees — and they often are — here there are many growing in terrain that is more desert-like.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Winding Canyon, Morning Haze. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
Morning haze mutes the features of a distant mountains beyond a winding desert canyon.
I am no longer sure how many times I have photographed in this location over the past fifteen years or so. My relationship with its landscape has continued to evolve. There are striking features here, and I’m sure that they are what attracted me at first. I recall many years ago setting up in one high spot before sunrise and photographing for the next hour or two from within perhaps a 25-foot radius. Since then I’ve gone back on every visit, which at this point is perhaps twenty or more times. The fascinating variety of the spot attracts me, but part of the story is that it is relatively easy to get to, even when I only have a few hours on a morning when I’m about to start the long drive home.
Due to the nature of access to the area, I tend to start at the same end every time I photograph there. At some point along the way the early morning light comes over mountains in the east and lights up the formations… and I typically stop and photograph intensively wherever I am at that point. As a result, I always seem to arrive at the end of this little loop too late for the great light. I’ve often looked up this canyon and other like it, hoping to photograph the winding path with the mountains in the background… and all too often realized that the light was gone. But this time I arrived at a lovely high spot in good light and photographed into the morning haze obscuring the details of the mountains beyond the twisting canyon.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Tree, Red Rock, Morning Light. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A lone tree in morning backlight against a backdrop of red rock formations, Zion National Park.
We recently managed to get away for our first long road trip in a very long time. We started in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, where the annual autumn aspen color show was well underway. From there we headed to Utah — which I have not visited since before the previous presidential administration — where we spent several days photographing in Zion National Park. From there we moved on to spend some time on one of the less-travelled Utah backroads before heading south for a very quick visit to the North Rim of Grand Canyon. (The story of that part of the trip is a bit too long to relate here. Perhaps later…)
Our visit to Zion was divided roughly into two sections. We spent the first part of the visit exploring and photographing sections of Zion Canyon on foot. Then we spent a day in the “high country” along the Mount Carmel highway, an area with an infinity of photographic opportunities that change with the light throughout the day. That is the area where I made this photograph of a solitary tree standing atop a sand stone formation in the brilliantly bright morning back-light.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Treeline Meadow. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
A green mid-summer subalpine Sierra Nevada meadow surrounded by glaciated granite and sparse trees.
We recently returned from a week in the Eastern Sierra backcountry, time spent base-camped with good friends and fellow photographers in an area of exceptional beauty and photographic opportunities. I made this photograph one morning in an area of extensive meadows a short distance from our home base. I always think of scenes like this as representing the “range of light” concept of the Sierra — high, open country on comfortable, sunny days.
Truth be told, while we certainly did have conditions like this, we also encountered some extraordinary weather that was unusual for this time of year in the Sierra. Within the first hours of arriving here a powerful electrical storm arrived and pinned us down in tents for hours as lightning flashed, thunder boomed, rain and hail poured down, and the landscape flooded. I don’t recall a similar summer experience in these mountains in decades of backcountry travel.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
A Northwestern Crow enjoying a dead rat on a street shortly after sunrise. An opportunist, it discovered this find, and is a wonderful part of the environment's clean up crew. I had walked by the dead rat on the way to Tsehum Harbour and idly wondered who would take advantage of it. On the walk back, I found out...
I know some of you mentioning having troubles with Flickr. I have too, but not as bad as yesterday. I managed to upload two photos, and comment on around four when it completely bogged down. It took three attempts to sign out, and I wasn't even sure I was successful, as it wouldn't let me back on all day. So I apologize for not getting to your recent uploads. Hopefully the problem is fixed and I can view them today!
Please don't use this image on websites, blogs, etc. without my permission.
Succulent Leaves, Detail. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
Black and white close-up photograph of succulent leaves.
There is a tension in photographs, I think, between viewing them as attempts to “capture” reality and their ability to show subjects as something other than or in addition to their appearance. One of my favorite observations about photographs comes from Minor White: “One does not photograph something simply for ‘what it is’, but for ‘what else it is’.” To observers who want to “get” photography, I suggest keeping this idea front and center.
You may have seen a plant just like the on that was in front of my lens when I made this photograph. We know that the thing in this picture is very small plant, perhaps of a sort we are familiar with. But the idea here is not to show you “what the plant looks like,” much less “what the plant is.” It is — perhaps obviously! — to suggest that you look at the familiar plant for what else it might be.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Translucent Bloom. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.
Light glows thorugh the petals of a spring blossom.
The scale of my usual photograph subjects generally ranges between the whole landscape and something smaller but still larger… than I am. But Patty, the other photographer in the household, has made a specialty of photographing vey small things, often flowers, and often so close that we see details rather than the whole thing. I suppose that this was bound to rub off, and I just realized that I have a series of such photographs on my desktop ready to post.
I made this photograph on one of our periodic forays to a large garden on the San Francisco Peninsula. At first I wasn’t thrilled with the light — we were expecting some lingering fog and soft light, but instead the sun was out. But I found that if I got in really close to some of these flowers that were in just the right light… it was possible to find that “less than all of it” perspective on them.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Fall Color, Bare Aspens. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
Nearly bare aspen trees in the center of a scene of Eastern Sierra autumn color.
This is one of the last of this years Sierra Nevada aspen photographs, made when this particular patch of color was moving past its prime — some trees here are almost completely bare. While writing about this photograph I was pondering my favorite time of aspen season. Is it the first explosion of color early each fall? Is it the peak time when the greatest number of leaves are fully transitioned? Or is it this time, when some colorful leaves remain but it is more and more obvious that winter is on its way? Honestly, it is hard to pick one over the other, but I do love how the trunks and branches are gradually revealed as the leaves fall.
While this photograph focuses on trees near the end of the color transition, nearby and just out of the frame were many trees still in peak, golden color. This year I felt that the brilliant colors hung on just a bit longer, and I have some theories about why this happened. The ongoing warm-up of the California (and global) climate is one factor. Another specific to this year (well, sort of) is that the lack of any significant early season storms or wind allowed leaves that might otherwise have been blown down to remain on the trees a bit longer.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Evening Light, Sierra Crest. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
sunset light illuminates Sierra crest peaks as summer clouds clear beyond Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park.
This is the second photograph in this series that I’ve shared recently. (Two more are in the pipeline.) I posted a slightly different one that rendered the scene in portrait orientation. But a bigger difference is how the light evolved over the couple of minutes between the two exposures. At this time of day in these conditions, the light is very dynamic as it shifts from yellowish toward pink and red and ultimately to the blue tones of dusk. Meanwhile, the sunset light from the west is affected by intervening clouds, and the light and color move across the landscape. In this exposure, those blue tones are strengthening in the foreground forest and meadow and in the darker clouds above the lenticular formations.
Often a scene suggests one particular photographic interpretation or perhaps two. Maybe portrait- and landscape-orientation versions are in order or there is more than one way to frame the composition. But on a spectacular evening like this one when the scene remains compelling as it undergoes radical transformations of color and light, it is possible to end up with too many photographs! Originally I strained to hold myself to a series of four from one vantage point. However, after returning to these images recently I now see that others work, too — like this one.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Spring Wildflowers and Rain. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.
A carpet of spring wildflowers extends across a broad California valley as rain falls from passing clouds.
While in Death Valley we made a spur-of-the-moment decision to modify our return to the Bay Area by adding an extra travel day so that we could pass through Carrizo Plain National Monument. In wet years this typically dry place erupts in spring color as wildflowers carpet the valley and surrounding mountains — and this being a very wet year a visit seemed appropriate. We made it to the Carrizo, though the full story of weather and detours will have to wait for a later post.
California’s exceptional 2022-23 weather was on view during our visit. Although it was supposed to be sunny and dry, we passed through some pretty heavy downpours — and one of those showers is visible in the distance in this photograph. Here a carpet of wildflowers extends across the broad valley toward distant hills.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
One of the Bald Eagles that came to check out the dead Harbour Seal when the Turkey Vultures were on the beach. (Tsehum Harbour, BC).
Please don't use this image on websites, blogs, etc. without my permission.
Cranes, First Light. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
The first morning sunlight on a flock of sandhill cranes standing in a wetlands pond.
The light and atmosphere were a bit unusual on this morning. There was just a bit of ground fog, along with some general haze. As the sun came up, a thin layer of clouds to the east over the Sierra Nevada blocked the direct sunlight. These factors combined to produce a very muted and subdued quality as I photographed groups of sandhill cranes in ponds at this wetlands location, standing in groups and occasionally flying off.
As I photographed in this subtle light I knew that eventually the sun would rise about that eastern cloud deck, and that this would produce a few moments of very warm-colored light that was still softened by the haze and fog. I made this photograph of the cranes just as that first direct sunlight arrived.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Lake, Meadow, and Alpenglow. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
The shoreline of an alpine lake and alpenglow on Yosemite backcountry peaks.
Over the years I have visited this lake many times. I feel like I know it pretty well now, but I still discover new things each time I go there. My first visit was on a very long day hike in the early fall, in golden light and cooler temperatures. After that I made it a backpacking destination quite a few times, and from here I explored other higher lakes nearby.
On the trip when I made this photograph I had gone earlier in the season to set up a photography base camp. From here I hiked daily to higher lakes, where I photographed more alpine country. A special feature of this location is that it lies on the west side of a ridge running somewhat north-south, with a completely open vista to the west. Late in the day this landscape fills with colorful sunset light.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Mountain Stream. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
A High Sierra stream cascades past forest and meadows and over boulders after summer rainstorms.
This little “almost-intimate” landscape comes from closer to the midpoint of our August backcountry photography trip. The first few days features some challenging weather, including torrential rains on the first day. That rain flooded a lot of the area and raised this creek by several feet. On that first afternoon as we lay in our tents sheltering from the storm we started to hear a roar beneath the sound of rain and hail — it was the sound of this “little” creek growing to a dangerous torrent.
The tumultuous water was brown with suspended material washed down from the higher mountains, and for days the nearby lake’s water was coffee-colored. But before long the creek began to recede and its water cleared. By the time I made this photograph early one morning the water was low enough that I could safely ford the stream. I was about to do just that on my way to some timberline country when I paused and made this photograph of the creek, still in morning shadows.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Desert Mountains, Morning Storm. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.
A morning storm drops snow and rain on desert mountains, Death Valley National Park.
In addition to being an example of beautiful morning light, this photograph was also a reminder of an important principle of landscape photography. I’ll get to the latter point in a moment. I made the photograph on our final morning in Death Valley before packing up and starting home. When I got up before dawn things were not promising. It was overcast and there was a small chance of rain. I headed out into the Valley to photograph where, indeed, it was cloudy and I did get rained on. But for a brief moment this beautiful light appeared on the summit of distant mountains.
The principle? There might be more than one, now that I think about it. The first is that if something special happens and you are not out there, you aren’t going to photograph it. So even on days when the prospects seem unpromising, you go. It helps to remember that not all days are astonishingly beautiful, and you’ll have to deal with the less-amazing days if you expect to be there for the miracles of light. Another principle? Often the most interesting light comes in the least promising situations — for example, on a gray, cloudy morning when beams of light unexpectedly break through a gap in the clouds and light up a peak against that dark, dramatic background.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Panamint Range Snow, Evening Light. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.
Late-day light illuminates snow covered ridges and thin forest along the summit of the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park.
The reputation of Death Valley National Park is mostly tied to heat — the desert, the dunes, the rare rainfall. I once asked German relatives why they choose to visit in the middle of summer when few of us would choose to go there. The answer, more or less, was that Death Valley is famous for being the hottest place on earth, and that is what they wanted to experience. People who “know” the park from that perspective are often shocked to find that snow is common here in the mountains.
When we visited the Panamint Mountains at the beginning spring the snow was plentiful, and we actually experienced a moderate snow squall. (One of the oddest experiences I’ve had in this park was some years back when we photographed spring wildflowers during a snow storm in Death Valley. Let that one sink in for a moment.) Late on this day we went to a high overlook to wait for sunset, and the warm light illuminated this nearby ridge in the very late afternoon.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Dunes, Blowing Dust. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.
A late-afternoon spring dust storm sweeps across sand dunes, Death Valley National Park.
This was a wild scene. By late afternoon it was clear that high winds and blowing dust were on their way. We hunkered down for a while and ate an early dinner while waiting to see what would develop. The winds continued to build and the sand and dust were heading more and more in our direction. These conditions are both compelling and extremely uncomfortable, but my desire to photograph overcame my common sense and I headed out.
Since the winds were blowing from to my left and a bit behind me, I decided to head to an elevated spot where I would at least not be directly the blowing sand. From this location I could look down and across the dunes and the clouds of sand sweeping across them. The wind was still a problem, a big problem actually. It was blowing so hard that even my relatively stout tripod was useless, so I leaned against a fixed object, raised the shutter speed, turned on image-stabilization and hoped for the best. It was literally impossible to hold the camera steady, so I resorted to timing my exposures for brief moments when things at least slowed down a little bit.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Desert Mountains and Wash, Evening. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
The last of the day’s light illuminates a wash descending though desert mountains, Death Valley National Park.
This feels like a “quiet photograph” to me — a desert scene that appears to be almost entirely static. In fact, one of the most powerful desert experiences I have had in the desert comes from moments in lonely, quiet places where it seems that nothing is moving and that it has been that way for a very long while. It is as close to the feeling of time stopping as we’re likely to experience.
The truth is that I made this photograph in a location that is not exactly quiet and still. Very close to my position there were dozens of people lined up to photograph one of the icons of Death Valley. (This particular icon is interesting but not photographically compelling to me, but as I mentioned in another recent post… my perspective can change!) The photograph illustrates another useful idea in photography, that when you are faced with an obvious subject it is still good to look around at all of the other things that might be worthy of your attention.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Tall Aspen Grove, Autumn. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
A small group of tall aspens with long, white trunks and colorful autumn foliage, Eastern Sierra Nevada.
This photograph is yet another example of the variety of colors during the Sierra Nevada autumn aspen transition. There’s still a bit of green, a lot of brilliant yellow, and highlights of red and orange here and there. Earlier in this season the predominant colors tend to be the yellows set against the greens. But by the second half of the month much (though not quite all) of the green is gone, and the more characteristic autumn colors clearly dominate.
This photograph is also another example of the usefulness of long focal length lenses for landscape photography. I use everything from 16mm to 400mm and sometimes longer for landscape. The long lenses have some important uses. They let me photograph subject that are simply not accessible. They allow me to work at a distance from an elevated perspective that isn’t available closer to the subject. They are useful for narrowing down the scope of a composition and eliminating distractions. All of those were in play when I made this photograph.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
New Year’s Morning. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
Early morning clouds and flocks of geese fill the sky above the California Central Valley on New Year’s Day morning, 2023.
We spent New Year’s Day in a wild place with friends, sharing food and stories, and photographing birds and the landscape in which they live. I can’t think of a better way to greet a new year, which is why we’ve been doing it for perhaps a decade now. The specific location doesn’t matter all that much — it could be almost anywhere — but the tradition definitely does matter!
Photographically-speaking, the day was sometimes challenging. The weather was transitory, between one gigantic departing storm and another storm that would arrive the next day. While we had a lot of wind (not great for bird photography!) and clouds, there were moments of beautiful light. I made this photograph not long after sunrise, when the light on the high clouds was still a bit colorful and thousands of geese filled the sky.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Bodnant Gardens Bumble Bee...! Opportunist photo as it landed while I was focussing on the flower. Bodnant Gardens, Colwyn Bay, Wales. National Trust.
Grove Above the Surf. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.
Description
This grove of trees sits on the edge of a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean along a popular section of the Big Sur Coast. In most cases, I have usually regarded it as a bit of an obstacle, as I have to sort of work around it to photograph certain features in the area. (In fact, I also sometimes have to “work around” a small herd of cattle that sometimes grazes in the foreground meadow!) On this visit I decided to turn the tables and make the trees the subject.
This was an interesting day, and photography was at times a bit challenging. I visited during a one-day break in the string of atmospheric river storms that hit California between late December and January, and I managed to squeeze in a single morning of photography here. Damage from the storms was easy to find, with landslides and road repairs along the way. But on this morning occasional sun broke through the high overcast and made the thin fog luminous.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Two Cranes, Sunrise Sky. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.
Two sandhill cranes fly through sunrise sky, Central Valley, California
I hope you don’t mind what is rapidly becoming a whole series of photographs of sandhill cranes flying in front of an intensely colorful Central Valley sunrise. Yes, there will be more. Some things are beyond the photographer’s control — whether the birds will show up, where they will be, what background they will fly in from of, precisely how the light evolves. Two things improve the odds: being out there as often as possible and developing a sense of what may happen. This sky was a welcome surprise, and it turned what I thought might be a rather dull sunrise into something quite colorful.
Sometimes when I read people discussing “keeper rates” for bird photography and claiming things like a “90% success rate” I have to wonder. In my experience, the success rate with this subject is MUCH lower. First of all, you cannot control the birds. Obvious, right? Secondly, one often has to make an exposure (or many) rather speculatively — “I think something interesting may happen here.” You cannot wait for it, since by the time it happens it is too late. One difficult is that birds quite often aren’t flying in the “right” direction. They might be close, but they also might be flying away. That’s the case with these two cranes, but the difference is that they are, well, “craning” their necks to the left so that their heads are still visible.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.