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

Redrock Country, Near Fruita

June 27, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cliffs and eroded towers near Fruita, Capitol Reef National Park

I’m a sucker for juxtapositions of mountains and cliffs, and sunlit and shadowed surfaces. (In fact, “juxtaposition” is a word I think about a lot when making photographs.) This part of the world provides these juxtapositions with a vengeance. Everywhere in the red rock country of the Southwest there are sandstone walls, lined up, building one on top of the other, standing in front of and behind each other, layered with eroded rock and soil, standing above valleys and beyond lower ridges.

We had only a brief time to photograph on this first afternoon in Capitol Reef National Park. I had arrived in the middle of the afternoon and then busied myself with setting up a tent and a few other camp chores, plus catching up on the news with my friend Dave. By the time all of these important things had been taken care of the sun was rapidly dropping toward the horizon, so we quickly headed to a nearby area to see what sort of late-day light we could find. Literally within minutes of leaving our campground (which is just to the right of the shadowed trees visible in the lower part of the photograph) we came upon this intense and saturated late-day light, with shadows starting to stretch across the valley and the low foreground ridges.

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

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

Sandstone Cliffs, Autumn

June 26, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening light on the autumn sandstone landscape of Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

I began this fall season visit to Utah in the far southwest corner of the state, making Kanab my base for the first few days. There I explored various valleys and canyons, mostly improvising an itinerary as the mood struck me. I returned there to a few places I had visited in the past and also visited a few new places. After a few days here I took a back-route up to Capitol Reef where I would meet up with my friend and fellow photographer David Hoffman.

I arrived at Capitol Reef in the afternoon, found Dave’s campsite (he had arrived earlier) and set up my tent. As I recall, we were unable to resist the lure of the nearby place selling home-made pies, and it wasn’t until late in the day that we decided to make a quick run for some sunset light. We found it quickly — the location of our campground is just out of sight to the right around the bend in the road running up this valley. Because the landscape tilts up to the west here, the sunset seems to come a bit earlier than I would expect, and we were barely in time of catch this light before the valley fell into shadow.

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

Photographs: Austria, Photographs: Urban/Street

Bicycles, Old Wall

June 25, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Bicycles lean against an old stone wall in Salzburg, Austria

This is another photograph from our visit to England, Germany, and Salzburg, Austria a few summers ago. (We need to go back! Not this summer, though.) From our “home base” in Heidelberg, Germany we travelled south by train to Salzburg on our way to Bavaria, where a big group of us stayed in a farm-house near Berchtesgaden and the Königsee for a week.

Since that area is so close to Salzburg and since we arrive and departed via that city, we ended up visiting Salzburg several times, often walking around the city with cameras at the ready. Cars really can’t get into the central old town area, so almost everyone walks, with bicycles serving as a faster mode of transportation for some. And there are bicycles everywhere, including these two parked against a very old stone wall.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Tuolumne River, Evening

June 24, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Tuolumne River flows through the Yosemite Sierra Nevada high country

We had one day in the Yosemite area on the summer solstice, and we made as much of the long daylight hours as we could. We started out very early in the morning in Oakhurst, just outside the southwest boundary of the park, and then headed towards Tioga Pass Road. We took that route through the high country to Tuolumne Meadows, and after lunch we crossed Tioga Pass and headed down to Lee Vining for a brief east side visit.

While we were in the Lee Vining area we began to see interesting clouds east of the range, and it looked like lenticular clouds might form before sunset. That is my cue to find a high place with light from the west, so we headed back up to Tuolumne, stopping a few times on the way there, and finally arriving nearly perhaps an hour and a half or more before sunset. As we followed a trail out into the meadow to find foreground for photographs of the Sierra crest and the clouds I looked back to the west across the twisting river, meadows, and forests to see this scene in evening light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

All posts by G Dan Mitchell

Redrock Country, Near Fruita

Sandstone Cliffs, Autumn

Bicycles, Old Wall

Tuolumne River, Evening

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