Forested Hill, Morning

Forested Hill, Morning
Forested Hill, Morning

Forested Hill, Morning. Lake Tahoe, California. June 21, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light on trees of an open forest ascending a rocky hillside, Lake Tahoe

More quiet morning light at Lake Tahoe, photographed during my visit last week. We were there for a wedding and up late at night, but I still managed to struggle out of bed shortly after 5:00 in pre-dawn near darkness and head out along the west side of the lake. For such an urbanized and busy place, it is certainly possible to find quiet and solitude in these early morning hours. I saw almost no one else out traveling at this early hour — apparently the beautiful dawn light isn’t quite enough to get others to rise!

The light was the sort that I describe as “interesting.” It was not the all-too-common light of a cloudless blue Sierra sky, nor was it the darkened, overcast light. There were enough clouds to occasionally “turn out the lights” on the warm morning light, but between those cloud shadows warm and soft light passed across lake and rocks and forest. I stopped at a simple roadside turnout, surrounded by forest, when I saw this morning light coming from behind some trees and, nearby, hitting them from the side. This is one sort of quintessential Sierra terrain, with straight but not too tall trees leading up a rocky and sandy slope covered with boulders and manzanita.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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.

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