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.

Autumn Trees, Canyon Wall

Autumn Trees, Canyon Wall
“Autumn Trees, Canyon Wall” — A small grove of autumn cottonwood trees next to the wall of a Utah canyon.

A few years ago three of us explored a long section of narrow canyon in Utah, looking for photographs in this rich landscape. We started in a broad valley where a stream flowed between low hills, but soon the walls rose and steepened and the valley narrowed, and we found ourselves following a creek. The canyon was alternately wide and then narrow and constricted.

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Imaginary Landscape — Brown

Imaginary Landscape — Brown
“Imaginary Landscape — Brown” — An imaginary landscape based on materials from the desert.

This imaginary landscape — an image produced by manipulating photographic materials — riffs on the subject of playa mud. Here the semi-circular forms in the lower 2/3 of the frame interested me, obviously along with the shapes and textures of the dried mud.

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Aeolian Bedforms

Aeolian Bedforms
“Aeolian Bedforms” — Wind-caused ripples in desert sand dunes, Death Valley.

This is probably the classic notion of what a desert looks like — fields of wind-formed sand dunes stretching into the distance. In truth, such dunes typically cover only a very small fraction of the desert landscape. That’s certainly true in Death Valley National Park, where large, impressive dunes are only found in a handful of locations. We visited one of them on the final morning of our late February trip.

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Stairway, Santo Amaro Chapel

Stairway, Santo Amaro Chapel
“Stairway, Santo Amaro Chapel” — A stairway leads to a door at the Santo Amaro Chapel, Lisbon

Thisq is another photograph from Lisbon’s Santo Amaro Chapel, a very old structure near the waterfront and almost beneath the April 25 Bridge (“Ponte 25 de Abril“). That is the one that looks very similar to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. After passing beneath the bridge’s north end, we walked a little further west, then climbed steps to this location. It is one of the better viewpoints of the bridge, with a wide plaza open to that view.

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