Category Archives: Photographs: Southern California

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

Desert Mountains, Rain

May 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Afternoon rain falls on peaks beyond a rising series of rugged desert mountain ridges, Death Valley National Park

This turned out to be a surprisingly and almost ridiculously productive day of photography, which was not at all what I expected as the day began nor at any number of times later in the day. Much of what happened was unplanned and the result of discovering things and of reacting intuitively to changing conditions. Prior to getting up before dawn to head to out first shooting location, my description of what I hoped would happen on this day or even of what I expected would happen would have had little in common with how it evolved. I have related some of the details of the earlier parts of the day already—sunrise light cut short by an incoming storm, the surprise discovery of abundant high desert mountain wildflowers, a snow storm, a first visit to an old historic site, and more—so I’ll just briefly mention the later part of the day. The winter storm, that brought some rain and snow to Death Valley National Park mountains, finally broke up, leaving a few showers high up in the mountains along with brilliant light coming through gaps in the thinning clouds, and these conditions lasted right on into the evening.

I made this photograph in the late afternoon. There was still plenty of rain or snow among the peaks, though the air was much clearer below and, indeed, some light was beginning to come through the clouds. Here I had a clear view across a portion of the valley, over the alluvial material at the base of the Cotton Mountains, and on up across the layered ridges toward the cloud-shrouded higher peaks. I had an idea for this as a photograph, but the light was difficulty and I knew that significant work in post would be required. Indeed, while this might seem like a simple natural landscape, the final version here is the result of significant work done after the fact in the digital darkroom.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Mining Relic, Death Valley

May 11, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Between having our sunrise light interrupted by an incoming storm (though it was not a compete washout) and retreating from the road past the charcoal kilns in heavily falling snow, we stopped for a while at the old Harrisburg site, where Harris and Aguereberry ran a mine for a number of years. (They reportedly didn’t get rich, but they also avoided going bust—the story is that they extracted enough ore to make it work.)

Calling the place “Harrisburg” is over-selling it! There is a small cluster of cabins—three, to be precises—tucked up into a slight indentation at the base of a low hill in a high, broad Panamint Range valley.The mine is found at the far end of the hill and around its far side, and a variety of mining detritus litters the landscape: remnants of old rails leading into the mine, some impressive scaffolding, lots of rusted stuff, an old abandoned vehicle. As we poked around near the mine I found this old hunk of weathered sheet metal hanging from some wooden structures.

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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

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

Panamint Mountains, Spring

May 8, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Cloud shadows pass across valleys of spring-green high desert plants in the Panamint Mountains of Death Valley National Park

I like to think of this photograph as one that may offer a more truthful presentation of the character of Death Valley. As photographers, almost all of us to looking for the extraordinary—momentary instances of astonishing light, brilliant color towering clouds, dramatic light, and more. And, of course, there is nothing remotely wrong with that. It is these things that draw us to these places and which drive our search once we get there. We will often put up with, sometimes patiently and sometimes not, hours or days of what some call “blah” light in order to be able to photograph brief instance of something atypically powerful. But we must be aware that what we find and show in this brief slices of time is often special precisely because it is unusual.

A few years back I started thinking more about my relationship with the landscape of Death Valley and the surrounding terrain. I had been focusing on the extraordinary—and I still do—and on the way to such places I often passed through other areas, sometimes without taking the time to think about what I was seeing in those moments. I think that it was partially out of frustration that I arrived at the idea of trying to see these subjects more clearly and try to figure out how to photograph them. After all, I knew—at least once I stopped to think about it—that my love of this places was not limited to just the unusual and extraordinary moments, but that it also included midday quiet in the heat and subtle colors of sage country, a series of simple overlapping ridges, a bit of rock. And once I recognized this I started to think that these things, and not just sunrises and sunsets and impressive formations and unusual clouds, might make worthy subjects if I slowed down and tried to understand them. And this is one of those photographs. There is no single, impressive subject in this frame. Instead we have the almost uniform pale green of the arid mountain plants on an early spring day after rain, when the plants produce a subtle but surprising green coloration that varies as the land alternates between gullies and the tops of low hills and clouds from a cleaning storm move across the landscape.

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

Desert Mallow Buds

May 5, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Desert mallow buds begin to open, Death Valley National Park

Much to our surprise, in this third of three straight California drought years, we found an abundance of wildflowers during our early April visit to Death Valley National Park this year. Throughout the state, things are not on their normal yearly cycles. Because of the very serious drought, many plants did not come up at all during the usual winter time frame, and now that spring is here we see many others blooming much earlier than usual. We had assumed, along with a lot of other people, that the widespread drought was going to make this a very poor year for desert wildflowers.

We were wrong. Even outside the park on the drive there we started to see a lot of flowers in the arid portions of Southern California and to the east of the southern end of the Sierra Nevada. Many desert plants are very opportunistic, bursting forth when a bit of rain falls at the right time, and rain had recently fallen out here. Oddly enough, as I photographed these opening desert mallow buds here in the desert mountains of the park… it was very cold and starting to snow!

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Southern California

Desert Mountains, Rain

Mining Relic, Death Valley

Desert Mallow Buds

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