Category Archives: Photographs: The Southwest

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

Red Rock Hills

March 27, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Red rock hills rise from the surrounding terrain, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

I made this photograph in a spot where the ubiquitous flat terraces, covered with lots of dry country plant life, run into the edge of smooth sandstone surfaces which then rise abruptly into hills and valleys and low summits. We went to this place in the late afternoon — it and a nearby area were to be the location for our evening shoot. We parked our vehicles, got out, loaded up camera equipment, and headed toward these hills.

At this point the light was rather subdued for this time of day. High, thin clouds muted the intensity of the light and reduced the otherwise stark contrasts between shadows and subjects in the sun. This generally softens the appearance of the landscape and, to some extent, warms the light a bit. In the lower part of the frame a few hardy plants still manage to eke our a living on the rocks, but just beyond, as the rocks begin to rise up more steeply, almost nothing grows.

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

Red Rock Panorama

March 26, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening glow on red rock landscape, Utah

I acknowledge that this color is pretty wild. This is partly a result of the way the camera sees in diminishing twilight, with colors saturating in surprising ways. The photograph was among the last couple I made on this evening when we continued photographing so late that it was about to become tricky finding our way back down in the near darkness. It is also the result of wild color in the sky — a bit of which you can see on the clouds in the upper portion of the frame — that fell on rock that is already quite red.

We had spent perhaps a couple of hours photographing in this terrain, focusing on the sensuous shapes of the curved sandstone, the odd cottonwood tree with fall color leaves, and bits of the surrounding landscape. It was a productive evening, working a group of six of us exploring, at times together, and times in smaller sub-groups, and sometimes alone. I didn’t really want to stop, since this isn’t the kind of location that I can easily return to — but eventually the light faded and our work was done for the day.

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

Desert Canyon Creek

March 25, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sky and sandstone reflect in the surface of a desert canyon creek

I can’t say that I’ve yet spent enough time in these Utah canyons to fully understand their cycles, but it seems to me that there must be an ongoing back-and-forth between forces that heap sand into them and the forces that move that sand away. Whether the canyons are dry or wet when I visit, the effects of water are evident everywhere. Low places hold it long after the flow has stopped, and they can be deep pools or bowls of mud. The passage of water is recorded in dry form in ripples in sand and desiccated mud. And when the creeks flow, their banks often have terraces cut into the deposited sand when the water was at varying depths.

This bit of creek bed was at the base of a short drop below a small cascade, and it must have collected sand during some period of greater flow. The water was flowing sedately and quietly when we were there, yet the evidence of its ability to cut into the bottom of the canyon is clearly visible. The light had a blue-purple coloration here under the overhand of a large cliff, and the golden reflections in the mud and water are from plants and sunlit cliff faces high above.

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

Seepage, Canyon Wall

March 24, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Water seeps across the patterned rocks of a Utah canyon

We began our day’s hike and photography in sage-covered flatlands, where we left our vehicles at the end of a gravel road and soon dropped into a small canyon. The canyon quickly deepened and cut into the flatlands and sandstone walls soon rose around us as we continued. Soon we reached a junction where a stream flowed and we followed the stream, walking in it, along side it, and occasionally leaving it to cross higher ground where the canyon curved. The deeper we traveled into the canyon, the more intimate the landscape became as high walls cut us off completely from the surrounding terrain and bends in the canyon limited our view ahead and behind.

In the area of this photograph the canyon was rock all the way to its bottom, where the small stream flowed along the bottom of the shallow v-shape and water from springs seeped down across the rock, supporting the growth of plants. The water left behind sediments that colored the rock and formed patterns against the curving cracks, seen here in the soft light filtering down from high above, reflecting blue from the open sky and red from the sandstone canyon walls.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: The Southwest

Red Rock Hills

Red Rock Panorama

Desert Canyon Creek

Seepage, Canyon Wall

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