Category Archives: Photographs: Desert

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

Evening Clouds Above the Panamint Range

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Evening Clouds Above the Panamint Range
Colorful evening clouds above the Panamint Range and Death Valley.

Evening Clouds Above the Panamint Range. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Colorful evening clouds above the Panamint Range and Death Valley.

In previous posts about this Death Valley trip I mentioned that storm-related closures forced me to modify my plans when I arrived in the park. I ended up visiting a few out-of-the way locations on foot, areas not far from central attractions of the park, but perhaps less visited. (In one case, barely visited at all from what I could tell.) But I also made a last-minute decision to drive up to Dantes View one evening, and the sky cooperated.

Quite often the Death Valley sky is… just plain blue. So I was surprised and pleased to spot this interesting cloud formation building over the Panamint Range. Since this is more traditionally a morning photography location, I was pretty happy to see the clouds, since otherwise much of the landscape is in rather deep shadows in the evening. The view is familiar, but remains astonishing — from this location we look down more than 5000′ to the otherworldly features of Death Valley, up to the 11,000’+ Telescope Peak topping the Panamints, and in the far distance a few snow-covered Sierra peaks are sometimes visible.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Light in the Canyon

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Light in the Canyon
“Light in the Canyon” — Afternoon light strikes a hill in the lower reaches of a Death Valley canyon.

As I mentioned I recent posts, my plans for Death Valley were somewhat thwarted when I arrived there to find that large areas of the park were not accessible due to flood damage. I had to strike some remote areas from my agenda, recalibrate, and visit more accessible locations. As a result I ended up visiting more accessible areas that I had avoided in the past, including several fascinating washes that I really should have visited before. Since I had a free afternoon before evening photography I decided to take a long hike up this wash and back, and I’m glad I did.

The deeper and narrower Death Valley canyons are great places to visit during the daytime hours — in fact, a typical shooting plan for me includes a sunrise and sunset locations with one or more canyons partially filling the time between the morning and evening shoots. The timing of this canyon walk was such that the bottom of the canyon was almost fully shaded at times. I made this photograph near a bend where a bit of light reached the bottom of the canyon and illuminated this lighter colored formation.

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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

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

Cactus-scape

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Cactus-scape
Close-up view of beavertail cactus, Death Valley National Park.

Cactus-scape. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Close-up view of beavertail cactus, Death Valley National Park.

Many of the photographs that I brought back from Death Valley last week feature the grand, immense scale of the landscape — which is only nature given the, well, grand, immense scale of the landscape of the place. Today I’ll take a break from those images and look share something on much smaller scale — a cactus-scape, if you will. This is a very close view of a small portion of a beavertail cactus. As I worked on landscape photography in this location I realized that these cacti were everywhere, so I soon switched to a different camera with a macro lens.

This subject may bring up the question: will this be a “super-bloom” year? I don’t have a definitive answer to that, but I’ll share a few observations. I have heard that above-average rainfall in about the November time frame supports those extraordinary spring blooms. That did not happen this year. But there was rain — quite heave and even damaging rain — much earlier in the season, and there was some additional rainfall during the December-January period. I did see some very young shoots of new plants already starting to pop up in a few promising areas. My bet? No super-bloom, but more of a good to better-than-average year for wildflowers.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Playa Patterns

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Playa Patterns
Patters of earth, water flow, and salt deposits in Badwater Basin, Death Valley.

Playa Patterns. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Patterns of earth, water flow, and salt deposits in Badwater Basin, Death Valley.

In a roundabout way, this photograph is the result of last-minute changes to my plans during my recent Death Valley visit, changes necessitated by the closure of other places I intended to visit there. I took advantage of this situation by more carefully exploring some popular (and some less popular) locations in my central portions of the park. And that led to me being being at Dantes View on a rather cold evening. This is a location with some rather remarkable views, stretching from distant Sierra peaks to mountains near Las Vegas.

I arrived while there was still direct light on the salt flats and other features in Death Valley, and then I continued to photograph right on through sunset until early dusk. I made this photograph was the sun-shadow line was just passing over this area of salt deposits in, more or less, Badwater Basin. From Dantes View, more than 5000′ above Death Valley, these features look quite different than what we see when we are among them, and I used a long lens to isolate interesting sections of this otherworldly landscape.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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