Photograph: Burned Forest, Yosemite Valley, Autumn

Burned Forest, Yosemite Valley, Autumn

Posted on 24 May 2011

Burned Forest, Yosemite Valley, Autumn

Evening light in a burned section of the forest on the floor of Yosemite Valley.

I’ve been sitting on this photograph for a while, so I figure I’ll post it now. I made it last fall – on Halloween, actually! – during a fall color trip to the Valley. Late on my final evening I finally stopped and walked out across the old terminal moraine that crosses the lower Valley not far upstream from Pohono Bridge. (When you drive into the Valley, the road splits, and before long you’ll see the south end of this feature to your left as you go up a short climb.) I started at the north end and as I walked south looking for a photograph it was a very quite, still, and cold evening.

I finally found a spot where I could go down the lower side of the hill just a bit and find a relatively clear shot through the trees that wasn’t blocked by foliage closer to my position. This area has been burned, and I assume that it is the result of one of the management burns that often occur late in the season. These fires attempt to strengthen the forest by reintroducing the natural process and cycles of fire. The result is interesting charring patterns along the lower portions of the trees, temporary burned undergrowth, and then as the recovery takes place a much more open and airy sort of forest as you see in this photograph.

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Category: Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite
Tags: area, autumn, black and white, blackened, branches, brush, burn, california, charred, dense, dusk, evening, fall, fern, fire, floor, forest, hills, landscape, log, lower, monochrome, national, nature, north america, park, photo, scenic, section, sky, stock, sunset, travel, tree, trunks, usa, valley, yosemite

2 comments to Burned Forest, Yosemite Valley, Autumn

Steve Sieren

says:

May 24, 2011 at 8:17 am

Nice tones and framing of the edges Dan!

G Dan Mitchell

says:

May 24, 2011 at 5:49 pm

Thanks, Steve. There were a few challenges with this little shot: the sky right above the ridge was very bright… and the foreground was quite dark. I had to find the one spot where the view was not obscured by plants in the foreground. It isn’t easy to get a composition from a bunch of plain ol’ trees!

I plan to return to this spot and do some more work with it – I have an idea for where this image could ultimately go.

Dan