Sandstone Detail. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Detail of a section of a Utah sandstone rock face.

Remarkable things happen to the light deep down in the recesses of narrow sandstone canyons. The light is rarely direct, more often bouncing many times among red canyon walls. As it does, it softens, diffuses, and picks up the colors of the red rock. At the same time this landscape is open to a band of blue sky — what I think of as a giant blue light panel — and this color becomes part of the mix, though this light can follow a more direct path and fill in shadows. When you stop to consider what it really looks like, it almost seems unreal.

We were deep in such a canyon, spending a day heading deeper and deeper into it as it cut into the landscape. By the point at which I made this photograph, that band of blue sky was increasingly narrow and we encountered less and less direct sunlight.

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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