Backcountry Road, Desert Mountains. Death Valley National Park, California. March 6, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Titus Canyon road twists through rugged desert landscape of Titanothere Canyon before climbing to its high point at Red Pass
I have driven through this desert back-country quite a few times during my visits to Death Valley National Park. This time was a bit different in two specific ways. First, in the past I have usually combined this route with an early morning shoot at a nearby location, shooting at this other location first, taking a breakfast break, and only then heading out on this drive. Consequently, I’ve always made the drive quite a bit later in the day when the light is much different – usually more hazy and with the sun higher in the sky. This time I started my day on this route, heading out just before dawn. Secondly, I made this a more leisurely passage. Sometimes in the past I have allowed myself to pass by too many portions of this region a bit too quickly, telling myself I had to move on in order to get to other things in time. This time I stopped a lot, and I often lingered at these stops for quite some time, poking around and looking for things to photograph that I might previously missed.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I have sometimes found certain aspects of the desert terrain to be quite difficult to “see” as photographs. I think that the limited color palette has been one issue (often spanning the range from gray to tan!) as has the tendency for things to have a rather uniform appearance – often it is hard to find one central and prominent feature to focus on. In addition, for a photographer who has tended to work in places with water and greenery, the desert possess some different challenges. More than on some previous visits, this time I think I realized more that it is absolutely critical to slow down and adapt to the different pace and rhythms of this world. This time, rather than looking and deciding to move on, I stopped and looked some more. And as I did I began to see that there are more of the patterns and juxtapositions and forms that intrigue me than I had realized.
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.
Thanks, Chloe. This one sort of surprised me. When I made the photograph I did like it, but when I worked it a bit in post after returning home I began to like its subtlety a lot.
In Death Valley – and other places – there certainly are some colorful things to photograph, especially at certain times of the day. However, the fact is that these places are not nearly as colorful as people might think if they only saw photographs. A challenge for me to to try to figure out how to produce a photograph that is based on this less visually exciting palette, but which captures the attractive and compelling nature of this place even when the colors are subtle.
I’m not against color, and I’ll use the saturation slider when appropriate, but I’m with you on your description of “shrieking colors” and super-saturation. These things, if not used with some discretion and taste, can serve as a poor substitute for searching out good compositions and trying to understand these subjects for what they actually are, and not just what we can turn them into.
Dan
I love this – it really draws one in. And the subtle colors! One gets so tired of the shrieking colors/muddy tones of super saturated HDR.