Southwest Sky

Southwest Sky
Morning clouds above the landscape of Capitol Reef National Park

Southwest Sky. Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. October 22, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning clouds above the landscape of Capitol Reef National Park

On this October morning we were up early, but not quite early enough — though it turned out fine in the end. We awoke before sunrise, with a plan to head down along the east side of Capitol Reef National Park along the Waterpocket Fold. We hoped to be a good distance down this route when the sun rose, but we got up later than expected. We were far from our goal when the dawn arrived.

Our location was, in some ways, not the spectacular sort of place that we had envisioned for sunrise. However, there were absolutely beautiful clouds to our north, and the dawn light’s color could probably make any subject look good. So our immediate goal became quickly finding any place that looked like it might have photographic potential — and to find it NOW! Within a few minutes we found a short side road, drove a short distance to a hilltop, parked, and piled out of the vehicle, more or less already in the act of setting up tripods and cameras. We had only a few moments on special light on the clouds before it began to fade to daytime light.


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 | FacebookGoogle+ | LinkedIn | Email


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

Join the discussion — leave a comment or question. (Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately.)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.