Cottonwood Trees, Courthouse Wash. Arches National Park, Utah. October 11, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Autumn cottonwood trees along Courthouse Wash and sandstone towers, Arches National Park
After a second visit to Arches National Park and a few days into that visit, I was beginning to be able to see past the main, iconic towers and arches and other sandstone structures. This takes a while. When visiting a new location, it is natural and, I think, even a good idea to go with the icons at least a bit. They are, as the saying goes, icons for a reason. While I cannot say that I’m yet close to knowing this park nearly as well as I would like to, on this morning I began to feel that I was beginning to see past the main features a bit more. (Though I confess that I did begin the day shooting one of those well know features.)
As we drove out on the main road, I quickly noticed the beautiful cottonwood fall colors down in the bottom of Courthouse Wash. Shortly after crossing a creek bed, we pulled over and I wandered off to photograph these trees. Before I finished here, I had tried a number of different approaches to the subject – shooting mixed brown and yellow leaves collected on the ground beneath them branches silhouetted against morning sky, and here the backlit trees with some of the characteristic red rock towers beyond.
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.
I’ve wanted to create an image that utilizes the autumn cottonwoods and Courthouse Towers for years and haven’t succeeded. You’re here for a few days and you go home with this lovely image. Good on you, Dan! This is really quite fantastic in all respects. Congrats on a beautiful image!
Hey, thanks, Bret. You are among that very small group of photographers who really know this part of the world, so your comment means a lot to me. This shot was, in some ways, lucky in that we had absolutely beautiful light at that hour and on that day and I was fortunate to hit the color of the cottonwoods along that creek at just the right time.
Dan