Category Archives: Photographs: Desert

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

Dunes and Mountains, Rising Dust

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Dunes and Mountains, Rising Dust
A desert sandstorm raises towers of dust against a background of rugged mountains obscured by haze.

Dunes and Mountains, Rising Dust. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A desert sandstorm raises towers of dust against a background of rugged mountains obscured by haze.

Continuing here with the 2013 series of Death Valley National Park photographs and, at the moment, a series of photographs made in and around the edges of a big dust storm that swept down the valley late in the day. I made this photograph from a good distance away from the dunes, using a long focal length to bring them a bit closer and to make the more distant mountains fill the background. When the dust is bad, I often work from out along the margins of the worst of it, and here the allowed me to photograph almost straight into the afternoon sun and capture the diffuse and glowing dust-filled atmosphere.

The photograph demonstrates the compositional value of haze and obscured atmosphere in several ways. The generally hazy air glows from the backlight, and it obscures all but the largest forms of the distant mountains — just the barely visible outlines of ridges. Without this haze, the dunes would be overpowered by the structure of those mountains, and the rising towers of dust would be lost against a more complex background.

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

Dunes, Sandstorm

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Dunes, Sandstorm
Diffused light and atmosphere as a sandstorm rises above desert dunes.

Dunes, Sandstorm. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Diffused light and atmosphere as a sandstorm rises above desert dunes.

This photograph comes from a memorable early spring visit to Death Valley National Park back in 2013. (I know… what visit to Death Valley isn’t memorable, right?!) This day brought a fairly big sandstorm to the Valley, and I worked on photographing it in different locations and in a variety of ways — trying to focus on the atmosphere itself, on subjects made nearly opaque by the dust and brilliant light, attempts to capture the power of the dust-laden wind. This photograph perhaps comes closer to most of them in representing a subject that might be recognizable.

Photographing in these conditions is quite an experience, one that I’ve had more than a few times. On one hand, the scene can be overpowering and quite astonishing. Typically, aside from heat, these desert scenes can seem quite benign, mostly nearly static and quiet — in fact, immense stillness and quiet are among the most characteristic qualities of the desert landscape. But when such storms arise the experience is completely different and quite overpowering. It becomes difficult — sometimes bordering on impossible — to do much besides hunker down and wait for the conditions to subside.

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

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

Red Rock Detail

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Red Rock Detail
A section of sandstone cliff, Arches National Park.

Red Rock Detail. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A section of sandstone cliff, Arches National Park.

There is a story about my first visit to Arches National Park that we like to recount. (Perhaps you have heard it?) It derives from a habit of mine of not doing too much research before visiting a new location — I prefer to let some things remain a mystery so that I can have the joy of “discovering” the place for myself. That was the case on our first visit to Arches. I really didn’t know anything more than that there were (duh!) some archest there and that it was a national park. We arrived in Moab in the early afternoon, and finding ourselves with more time that day than expected we decided to make a quick first visit. A reliable source reports that I pretty much lost my composure upon “discovering” this collection of towers, arches, cliffs, and more.

This photograph comes from our second visit, a few years later and during a different season. By now we knew a bit more about what to expect, and I arranged to be in a particular spot early in the morning with the prospect of photographing dawn light on sandstone features. I made quite a few photographs that morning, but this one is an example of my interest in using long lenses to photograph small details of the 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 and Amazon.

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

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Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Mono Lake, Photographs: Nature

Shoreline, Mono Lake

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Shoreline, Mono Lake
A hazy summer morning along the shareline of Mono Lake.

Shoreline, Mono Lake. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A hazy summer morning along the shareline of Mono Lake.

Perhaps you see a few of my photographs and read the accompanying text… in which case you may already know my Mono Lake story: I’m attracted to the immense space and profound quite and stillness of the place, more so than specific features such as tufa towers. Perhaps because I’ve been to those popular features many times, I now tend to poke around in somewhat more obscure places or try to see other aspects of the lake and its surrounding basin.

I made this photograph on a clear sky day when haze — perhaps from wildfires? — was obscuring distant features on the far side of Mono Basin. With the light come from above and beyond those far ranges the atmosphere was luminous and seemed to almost glow. Winds were creating patterns on the surface of the lake. I included some of the near shore, too, perhaps to more clearly show the immense size of the lake.

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 and Amazon.

Blog | About | 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.