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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Dust Storm, Dunes, Evening Light

June 25, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A dust storm rages above sand dunes at the end of the day, Death Valley National Park

This was a wild evening, featuring an apocalyptic combination of tremendously strong winds, huge clouds of blowing sand and dust, periodic downpours of rain, and light that changed constantly from ominous and dark to luminous clouds backlit by sun to threads of virgo, and more. I had never seen quite this combination of conditions in Death Valley at one time.

Photography was quite challenging. Because sunset was approaching (and I continued to photograph into the dusk), it was often quite dark. The screaming winds made it virtually impossible to shoot from the tripod, so I was mostly reduced to bracing my camera against the window frame of my vehicle and working with the camera handheld. In the rough conditions I was forced to work from a distance with a long lens, since photographing inside the windblown clouds of dust and sand was not a good idea. Here the clouds and the dust above the sand dunes momentarily thinned, creating a backlit glow from the low angle sun about to drop behind mountains to the west.

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

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Evening Storms

June 24, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening rain clouds and dust storm above the Panamint Mountains, Death Valley National Park

This was a wild evening in Death Valley. While the clouds were generally moving toward clearing, we first saw extreme weather of several types. Down close to the ground there were big, billowing clouds of sand and dust being lofted above the Valley floor. High above that wildness huge weather front clouds built above desert mountains.

In the evening I decided to go our for one more photographic chase, even though the weather hardly seemed conducive to photography. In this case I resorted to an approach that I’ve used before in storms like this one, namely to put on the long focal length lens and shoot into the maelstrom from a distance. It this case, two storms were present at once: While high winds whipped up the sand and dust storm closer to the ground, overhead the monumental clouds of a rain storm towered over the desert mountains.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Granite Slabs

June 23, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Filtered sunlight on granite slabs, Yosemite National Park

While many may associate waterfalls with Yosemite, especially if their experience is mainly with Yosemite Valley, it is simply granite that comes to mind first for me. Yes, there are beautiful forests, and many wonderful lake, and rivers, and wildlife, and more — but all of those play out against the backdrop of the ubiquitous Yosemite granite. It comes as cliffs, shattered rock on mountaintops, domes, and beautiful slabs.

I spent a week photographing around a backcountry lake in early September 2015, during the time of awful wildfires and a lot of smoke — in fact, that smoke was partially responsible for the filtered light on the day I made this photograph. Within a few minutes of our campsite, huge slabs of granite rose up from near the shore of the lake and climbed many hundreds of feet up toward sharp granite ridges high above. This section, glaciated in the past and then fractured by ice and water, was sculpted into beautiful shapes.

Photographs: Night, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Sidewalk Shoppers, Night

June 22, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Shoppers and tourists walk past Chinatown shops at night, San Francisco

Allow me to continue to indulge my (relatively) new obsession with handheld night street photography! This is yet another photograph made after dark in San Francisco, in a popular tourist area full of people, shops, and plenty of wildly colorful artificial light. This might look a bit like just a photograph of a crowd, but when I look closer I’m fascinated by the variety of faces and activities and ways of engaging that I see.

It was only perhaps a couple of years ago that I discovered that I can use small handheld mirrorless camera set to high ISO to photograph in the nighttime city environment. In the past this was sometimes marginally possible in very well-lit areas, but most such photography required a tripod and its attendant disruption of the scene — people behave very differently when they see a big camera on a tripod. But now it is quite possible to roam with a very small camera and produce viable photographs that can even be printed rather large.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

All posts by G Dan Mitchell

Evening Storms

Granite Slabs

Sidewalk Shoppers, Night

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