All posts by G Dan Mitchell

G Dan Mitchell, photographer and visual opportunist focusing on the Pacific coast, the Sierra Nevada, redwood forests, California oak/grasslands, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography and more. Posting daily photographs since 2005, along with articles, reviews, news, and ideas.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Fall Foliage, Sandstone Canyon

July 6, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The colors of fall foliage and red sandstone canyon rock, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

These are the kinds of Utah colors that make some of us return to California and to find that “our Sierra Nevada” looks a bit more gray than we thought! In my experience, the color season in southern Utah begins in late September with the arrival of aspen color. (I have seen it, but so far have arrived just after the peak color.) It continues later in the month as the lower elevation cottonwood trees become intensely colorful. In some places the show is still continuing in early November.

The fall color show on its own would be impressive, but place those colors against the backdrop of Utah’s colorful sandstone landscape and the overall effect is very powerful. We returned from a daytime adventure elsewhere in Capitol Reef National Park and passed through this canyon area just before sunset. The light in the areas shaded by the tall cliffs was already becoming soft and luminous, and in this light the colors can become even more intense. We stopped and more or less wandered for as the sun continued to drop, photographing in the quite evening right up until the light was too far gone.

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Germany

Flowers, Light, Shadow

July 5, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An urban garden scene in a friend’s yard

I have had this little photograph open in my image editing program for some time now, waiting to post it online. It is a simple photograph, but I connect it to several things that have some meaning to me. The scene is in the tiny yard at the home of relatives in Heidelberg, Germany, whose hospitality we enjoyed over a two-week period a couple of summers ago. On this evening we had gone outside, if I recall correctly, to eat and have some wine when I noticed this diagonal beam of light passing over the surface of the white wall and forming a shadow. As someone once wrote, “There is always something to see,” and photographs are potentially anywhere.

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

Photographs: England, Photographs: Urban/Street

Two Men, Trafalgar Square

July 4, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two men sitting atop a public monument in Trafalgar Square, London

The main appeal of Trafalgar Square for me, I think, was the people. The variety of visitors was surprising, including locals, international tourists, people just passing through, folks staking out a space in order to spend some time, and so forth. In many places the square contains crowds of people.

It seemed that these two fellows had discovered a way to find a small measure of solitude in this busy urban scene, namely to climb up on the monument and sit about the crowd.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Dried Mud, Canyon Light

July 3, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dried canyon mud illuminated by reflected canyon light, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah

There are at least two stories in this photograph. The first one can be read directly from the materials, patterns, and colors of the photograph. The location is the bottom of a wash, a shallow canyon that is often dry but which may flood during rain. When water flows everything is rearranged. Sand settles to the bottom, a fine silt may lie on top, and eventually the layers dry in this warm climate. The dried silt contracts and splits then curls into odd shapes — here some of the silt has formed small tubes and all of it has rolled up and separated from the underlying red sand. On a sunny day like this one the light strikes canyon walls high above and bounce among them, picking up the color of the red rock and softening. The red light that suffuses the scene is contrasted by a slight bluish tint that comes from blue sky vaguely reflected on smoother parts of the dry silt.

The second story involves a group of a half-dozen photographers and friends. After a rather lazy morning of breakfast and coffee and conversation, we finally set off on foot down the wash that passed by our camp. As we walked the canyon narrowed and before long rocky walls began to rise on both sides — a common story in this terrain. Rounding a bend we caught sight of… dry mud. What happened next would probably perplex or amuse any non-photographers who might have happened by. In this grand landscape of towering walls and deep valleys, we spent the next half hour earnestly bent over tripods, carefully and repeatedly photographing… dried mud.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

All posts by G Dan Mitchell

Fall Foliage, Sandstone Canyon

Flowers, Light, Shadow

Two Men, Trafalgar Square

Dried Mud, Canyon Light

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.