Category Archives: Photographs: Death Valley

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert

Desert Sunrise, Trailer Reflection

January 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Desert sunrise reflected on the surface of a metal trailer, Death Valley National Park

On my final day in Death Valley this past December I rose early to go re-photograph a location that I had shot much earlier in the week… and fouled up some exposures when I failed to pay attention to camera settings. Yes, it happens! I had a long homeward drive ahead of me on this day, but I knew that I had enough time to get back to this spot and make amends before leaving. Fortunately, the location in question was not terribly far from where I was camped, and instead of what can sometimes be a half hour, one, or longer drive to sunrise location… this time it was maybe 10 minutes. So I got to sleep in… until there was actually a tiny bit of light in the sky! I awoke, dressed in the tent, and went to my car to drive to my destination as the light was beginning to glow in the east.

As I left the campground I was already in “photographer mode,” but probably mostly so that I could anticipate what light conditions I might be working with a bit later – but I was focused enough to catch a quick glimpse of this interesting reflection on the side of a metal walled travel trailer along the route out of the campground. It may sound odd, but the shiny metal surfaces, the ambient blue pre-sunrise light, and the reflections of a few reddish clouds along the eastern skyline caught my attention. I stopped. I backed up. I opened the window of my car. I made a few photographs of the trailer, which most likely contained sleeping campers who would miss this lovely sunrise.

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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Desert Mountains and Valley

January 14, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Receding desert mountains about the Amargosa Valley, Death Valley National Park

At first look, the general scene here might not have appeared to offer too many photographic opportunities. Although it was still somewhat early in the morning, it was well past the “first light” phase that can make almost any subject look beautiful. There was a great deal of atmospheric haze, and it almost obscured the far mountain ranges. And, as seen in the lower portion of this photograph, while the location is in high and rugged mountains, it is an extremely spare landscape with few plants and only the subtlest of colors from the high desert sage and similar plants.

But, for me, several things were going on here. First, I like haze! Second, a few years ago, after many years of photographing in the Death Valley landscape, I began to look beyond the familiar and more obvious beauties of sunrise and sunset light in dramatic locations in the Valley, and to try to figure out how to photograph more subtle and complex beauties that I encountered at other times and in other locations. I had found myself most often driving through locations like this one, on my way to other places that I presumed would be more interesting. Yet, even though I wasn’t photographing this sort of place, I was having pleasant experiences in them and developing an affinity for them. On one trip it hit me that if I liked being here, there must be some what to make photographs that somehow expressed what it was in these apparently barren places that made me like them. So I stopped here for some time, in a place that might seem like many other places along this route, and I looked around.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Rising Desert Hills

December 31, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A rising series of colorful eroded hills, Death Valley National Park

I get to use this photograph to tell a story at my own expense. Before arriving in Death Valley I had previous shot a very different subject. I don’t recall if it was birds in fading dusk light or perhaps classical musicians in stage lighting and backstage work lights. (Some of you can already guess where this is headed…) On the first morning in Death Valley I headed to a place that I like to photograph in early light – a place where there usually aren’t too many people, despite the easily accessible location, and where the eroded and colorful geology is almost completely devoid of plants. I arrived before sunrise and soon found a nice composition that I had not photographed before. I spent some time working that scene before moving on and photographing another a little ways away. Partway through that second set of shots I realized that my camera was still on the settings for the prior low-light subject – namely ISO 3200. That is not exactly a typical landscape sort of setting, and while good results are possible when shooting low light subjects that way, the noise levels are far from ideal for landscape. I reset and continued shooting. (I did return to the location on the final morning of the trip to reshoot that first subject.)

This scene was one of the first that I shot after realizing my error. These very eroded hills place different color material in a series of rising hills – tan, reddish, purple-black, brown, and more. The smooth features along the tops of some of the small ridges contrast with the very sharp and angular lines of the eroded channels that lead down to the wash. Later in the day the light here is almost impossibly harsh and the colors fade, but for a few minutes at the start (especially) and end of the day the colors briefly intensify.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Canyon Wall in Reflected Light

December 29, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pink and blue canyon wall and plants in midday light reflected from a nearby cliff

This is the second photograph I made along this section of curiously colorful cliff face deep in the “narrows” of a Death Valley National Park canyon. I have visited this place a number of times – it isn’t all that hard to get to – and often found it to be a very challenging photographic subject. I have shot it before, but mostly made it work by including people in the frame or by shooting subjects above the canyon rather than at the bottom. Because it is so deep – and it lacks the beautiful reddish rock of the Southwest – the depths of the canyon are often simply dark and somewhat drab.

As I passed through this time I took a slower pace than sometime, and I’m sure I saw things that I had overlooked before. This was certainly the first time that I had noticed the pink tinge to the rocks in this spot, much less the subtle blue tones of the underlying layers, the interesting rippled patterns, and the glow of light from an opposite canyon wall. I almost kept going but something told me to slow down and spend a bit of time here looking around, and I finally decided to see what compositions I could make out of the cracked rock and very sparse plants.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Death Valley

Desert Sunrise, Trailer Reflection

Desert Mountains and Valley

Rising Desert Hills

Canyon Wall in Reflected Light

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