Category Archives: Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Wildfire Smoke, Forest, Morning

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Wildfire Smoke, Forest, Morning
Morning smoke from the Empire fire settings among forest trees in morning light

Wildfire Smoke, Forest, Morning. Yosemite National Park, California. October 22, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning smoke from the Empire fire settings among forest trees in morning light

In today’s post I’m likely to repeat some things that I have shared before, but I think they might provide some context for this photograph of a wildfire that was still burning through forest in the Yosemite National Park Sierra Nevada high country. I have gone through several phases regarding wildfires as a subject. Many years ago, having had my first backcountry experiences in less enlightened part of the Smokey The Bear era, I simply regarded all wildfires as unmitigated disasters. Later I came to understand the obvious: wildfires have always been a part of the natural ecology of forests, and they are necessary for forest health. But I still didn’t like them. After that I began to make an effort to see wildfires and their aftermath as possible subjects for photographs, and even as potential subjects for photographs of something beautiful. For a long time I failed at that, even though I tried. More recently, perhaps because I have been lucky to be in the right places at the right time, I think I have finally begun to understand how to photograph the subject and make it work. (A longer post on that broad subject may be coming before long!)

There have been quite a few wildfires in California this year. (And while I recognize their importance in the natural order of things, I am concerned that the number and extent of the fires is far enough out of the normal range to have some long-term negative effects.) I have had plenty of opportunities to photograph their effects. On this late October morning I was in Yosemite and heading out towards Glacier Point, thinking it might be my final opportunity to photograph there before winter snows close the road for the season. I was stopped in my tracks as I came around a large bend in the road and to a high, open overlook with views toward the Sierra crest. The smoke from the slow-burning late stages of this fire had settled into hollows and among the trees in the still air overnight, and it was just beginning to drift and rise in the early morning light, both softening the scene and emphasizing the varied contours of ridges and forest.

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

Big Leaf Maple And Forest, Autumn

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Big Leaf Maple And Forest, Autumn
Yosemite Valley big leaf maple trees in autumn

Big Leaf Maple And Forest, Autumn. Yosemite Valley, California. October 21, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Yosemite Valley big leaf maple trees in autumn

I’ll start with a story about crowds, but I’ll end on a better note. :-) I drove to Yosemite Valley on this late-October weekend partially to photograph early fall color in The Valley, but also so that I could attend an exhibit opening at Gallery Five in Oakhurst — where the final showing to the 2017 Yosemite Renaissance exhibit had been installed. I have visited the Valley for years at about this time, since fall colors there typically peak around the end of the month. On this trip, my first indication that I wouldn’t exactly be alone in the park — despite there being a lot of wildfire smoke — was the extraordinarily long line to enter the park, even very early in the morning. Further into the Valley I was stunned by the number of cars and visitors — it wouldn’t have been anything special during the summer, but near the end of October? I decided to head up to the Curry Village (sorry, “Half Dome Village”) area to park where I could wander off and make photographs, but when I arrived there was literally no place to park — not the Village lot, the overflow lot, the nearby roadways, or anything else all the way up to nearby campgrounds. I was floored…

I finally left that area and found a pull-out along the roadway, parked my car near some a portion of the forest filled with colorful big leaf maple and dogwood trees, and headed off into an area where there was virtually no one else around. Yes, there are such places here, even on busy days. As I walked I spotted a number of potential photographs, but I kept going, walking slowly until I finally reached the banks of the Merced River. I made a few photographs there in solitude before turning around and slowly starting back the way I had come. I now had in mind a few trees that I thought might make interesting photographs, so I paused and poked around near them looking for compositions. This photograph falls into a category that I think of as “order from chaos” compositions, in which there is an almost overwhelming amount of detail tied together (I hope!) by some underlying compositional order. Here the darker branches and trunks of trees supply that order underlying the complexity of the colorful big leaf maple leaves.

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.
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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, Photographs: Yosemite

Autumn Leaves, Yosemite

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Autumn Leaves, Yosemite
Fallen big leaf maple leaves along a Yosemite Valley trail

Autumn Leaves, Yosemite. Yosemite Valley, California. October 22, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Fallen big leaf maple leaves along a Yosemite Valley trail

I suppose it would not truly be autumn without at least one photograph of fallen leaves littering the forest floor! I made this photograph on a walk along the south side of a quiet section of trail in Yosemite Valley where big leaf maple trees grow. Along with black oaks and dogwoods, these trees produce some of the most interesting fall colors in The Valley. The big leaf maples often grow among conifers and in autumn their brilliant yellow leaves contrast with the darker and more somber tones of the other forest trees.

Just before I made this photograph I had been looking for the actual trees, and trying to find some that were separated enough from their surroundings to stand out in a photograph. In this particular location that turned out to be difficult. There were some lovely big leaf maples, but the lighting was a challenge and they often were too interspersed with dense forest. At about that point I thought to look down, and I saw thick piles of the large leaves alongside the trail.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Wildfire, Forest, and Ridge

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Wildfire, Forest, and Ridge
Morning wildfire smoke settles among forest trees below a burned ridge

Wildfire, Forest, and Ridge. Yosemite National Park, California. October 22, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning wildfire smoke settles among forest trees below a burned ridge

Yes, another photograph of wildfire smoke, made on a late October morning along the Glacier Point road, where a fire had been smoldering for weeks just to the east and south of the road.I arrived well after dawn, but still at a reasonably early hour when the winds had not yet stirred the fog that had settled into valleys and among the forest trees. The fog stretched a good distance across the low valley east of my vantage point, and the combination of the foreground trees and the thinner trees running up the ridge caught my attention.

This photographic subject is a bit magical. At this early hour, when the smoke is backlit, everything seems to glow. Although the still air permitted the smoke to pool in low places and among the trees overnight, by this time of the morning the air begins to move and the smoke drifts among the forest trees. And this ephemeral landscape of smoke is in constant motion, changing as a bit of wind passes through, as the angle of the sun changes throughout the day, and as it drifts among these trees. I made a small number of exposures of this precise composition, and when I look at them know I can see that each differs from the others in important ways.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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