Tag Archives: usa

Photographs: Photographers

Photographer Scot Miller, Yosemite Backcountry

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Photographer Scot Miller, Yosemite Backcountry
Photographer Scot Miller at work on a ridge in the backcountry of Yosemite National Park

Photographer Scot Miller, Yosemite Backcountry. Yosemite National Park, California. September 14, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Photographer Scot Miller at work on a ridge in the backcountry of Yosemite National Park

I have been fortunate to get to know photographer Scot Miller over the past few years. I write “photographer,” but a more complete accounting would include videographer, author, and much more. I met Scot through my association with a group of photographers who have been photographing in the Yosemite backcountry for the past 15 years or so — sometimes referred to as the “First Light” photographers in recognition of their beautiful book, First Light: Five Photographers Explore Yosemite’s Wilderness. (The others are Charles Cramer, Karl Kroeber, Mike Osborne, and Keith Walklet.)

This past September three of us (Scot, Charlie, and myself) spent a bit more than a week base-camped at a backcountry Yosemite National Park lake making photographs. By staying in one location for so long we become acquainted with the location in ways that would not be possible in the normal backpacking mode, in which one tends to move from place to place daily. Instead we have the opportunity to let the character of the place sink in, to wander slowly, to return to spots we saw earlier, and to experience a range of conditions — which on this trip included everything from Sierra sun, though wildfire smoke, to a couple of days of rain. One morning, without planning to do so, Scot and I ran into one another high on this ridge above our lake.

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: Photographers, Photographs: Urban/Street

Photographer Doug Kaye

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Photographer Doug Kaye
Photographer Doug Kaye prowling a San Francisco alley in late afternoon light

Photographer Doug Kaye. San Francisco, California. September 5, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Photographer Doug Kaye prowling a San Francisco alley in late afternoon light

Back in early September I joined up with a group of fellow photographers to explore areas of downtown San Francisco in late afternoon light, followed by dinner, and then a return to the streets to photograph at night. Among the group was photographer Doug Kaye, here seen walking into the light along a narrow San Francisco street, a street lined with a bit of Dr. Seuss architecture with wildly dissonant angles from shadows, fire escape leaders, perspective convergence, and a crazily tilting lamp-post.

Later on this evening we headed back out after dark to photograph areas between roughly upper Chinatown and the Union Square vicinity. Night street photography is rapidly becoming a bit of a passion. Last year on a trip to Manhattan I realized that my little mirrorless camera performs well enough at high ISOs that I can effectively do handheld photography in the urban night environment — and this was a revelation!

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

Cottonwood and Aspen, Autumn, Eastern Sierra

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Cottonwood and Aspen, Autumn, Eastern Sierra
Fall colors come to cottonwood and aspen groves in McGee Canyon

Cottonwood and Aspen, Autumn, Eastern Sierra. Sierra Nevada, California. October 9, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Fall colors come to cottonwood and aspen groves in McGee Canyon

From the valley east of the Sierra the upper reaches of this canyon are not hard to see, though the bottom of the canyon and its entrance point are not so obvious. Pulling off on US 395 some distance from the canyon, a road rises up the alluvial hills at the base of the Sierra and traverses across toward an old lateral moraine. Rounding this hill, the tree-lined creek draining the canyon comes into view and a gentle through sage brush country passes a campground and a pack station before reaching the end of the road and trailhead.

This canyon rises quickly, and from the cottonwood lowlands one can hike into subalpine country in a short time, and it isn’t much further to get to backcountry lakes that seem to sit at the base of the Sierra crest. I paused along the road in the sage brush zone to make this photograph. Fall cottonwood trees are in the foreground, and further up the U-shaped canyon aspen trees have turned yellow. The remnants of an early autumn storm are seen, too, in the dusting of snow high up the rocky slopes at the head of the 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 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: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Receding Ridges, Rain

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Receding Ridges, Rain
A squall moves across hills near the base of the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada

Receding Ridges, Rain. Owens Valley, California. October 4, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A squall moves across hills near the base of the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada

This photograph belongs to a portion of my work that I think of as minimalist landscapes. They often focus on landscapes that are largely hidden or in which some elements are obscured. Not all involve mist, clouds, fog, and rain, but quite a few do. In many of them I am trying to work with a kind of light that is very special to me, where the atmosphere itself becomes luminous, perhaps when filled with haze or fog or dust and lit from behind, producing a kind of glowing effect that can be so bright that it is hard to look into.

On this day I had, or so I thought, finished my autumn photography on this trip, and I was in my “heading home” mode. I had driven down from the mountains, where I had photographed in rain and incoming light snow earlier in the morning, stopped in a town along US 395 for coffee and something to eat, then gotten into my vehicle to hit the road. Not 15 minutes north of town I came to a familiar spot where I often stop to admire the view and sometimes photograph. I pulled over and went a ways up a side road and watched the landscape disappear behind rain and clouds as a squall moved through. I set up under the rear door of my vehicle so that I could have some shelter from the rain, and I began looking for places in the landscape where there was just enough detail to suggest its form but no more than necessary. (Trivia fact: This is a color 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 and Amazon.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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