Sunrise, Panamint Mountains. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sunrise light on the summit of the Panamint Mountains, Death Valley National Park.

This photograph comes from the same spectacular early morning that produced another one that I shared a few days ago. I made this photograph a few minutes later as the first direct dawn sunlight began to strike the peaks and ridges of the Panamint Mountains in Death Valley National Park. This morning was a prime example of the rapid and often surprising transitions that occur at the beginning and ending of the day. When I arrived here well before dawn I could tell it was cloudy, but I could imagine a sunrise ranging from gray and dim to what actually happened. And once the process began and the good light appeared, it was a matter of working quickly over a short period before the light again became more mundane.

The experience of making this photograph (and others in the set from that morning) is also a reminder that in order to experience exceptional conditions you really need to be out there a lot. I’ve been to this location many times, including others when the conditions ranged between “blah” and “lovely, but I’ve seen this before.” If you just go once, you have no idea what you’ll encounter. But if you keep going back, even when you aren’t sure how it will turn out, the odds are that eventually you will encounter one of the outlier spectacular moments.

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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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