Category Archives: Photographs: The Southwest

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

Sunset, Chessman Point, Cedar Breaks

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Sunset, Chessman Point, Cedar Breaks
S”Sunset, Chessman Point, Cedar Breaks” — unset light at Chessman Point, Cedar Breaks National Monument

This was my first visit to Cedar Breaks National Monument in Utah. On my previous trip though Utah we had driven past the roads leading to Cedar Breaks and – doing what one does while driving these days! – we looked it up on the iPhone, and it sounded quite interesting. The descriptions suggested a high elevation bowl with Bryce Canyon-like features that would be open to the west and sunset light. With this in mind, we decided to end our cross-Nevada drive with an overnight at Brian Head, the seasonally dormant ski area where rooms were both relatively inexpensive and quite nice! After checking in we drove on up the road to the National Monument.

The terrain is very interesting and very “not California” to this Sierra Nevada guy. On one side of the ridge is a gently rolling high terrain of alternative forest and meadows, just the sort of place to find lots of deer in the evening and an altogether quiet and peaceful sort of place. On the other side of the ridge, however, things are quite different. The mountain simply drops away to the west, with brightly colored and complex fluted canyons of red rock and soil. Far below and in the distance we could see large groves of aspen trees. A strong wind was blowing up the west-side canyons, but I managed to stabilize things enough to make a few photographs of this spectacular terrain in near-dusk light.

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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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Tree, Fractured Sandstone Wall

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Tree, Fractured Sandstone Wall - A lone tree stands against the fractured textures of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park, Utah.
A lone tree stands against the fractured textures of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park, Utah.

Tree, Fractured Sandstone Wall. Zion National Park, Utah. April 3, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A lone tree stands against the fractured textures of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park, Utah.

Time for one more Zion photograph. Actually, it may not be quite the last from this April visit to that park and other beautiful areas of Utah. It almost doesn’t matter exactly where this photograph was made, since red rock and green trees can be found all over the area. Basically we were driving along a park road in the afternoon, with eyes wide open and looking about for photographic subjects, when we stopped alongside a section of the cliff that was still mostly in the shade, and in front of which beautiful trees were growing.

I liked the conjunction of the hard, reddish rock with its vertical cracks and horizontal patterns… with a single living thing, the very green tree growing up against the cliff face in the shade. Sometimes the colors of the rock can seem almost unreal. I feel a bit that way now when I look at the intense red-yellow colors in the upper right corner of the frame.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Sandstone, Cliff-Dwelling Plants

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Sandstone, Cliff-Dwelling Plants - A few plants grow in cracks in the face of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park, Utah
A few plants grow in cracks in the face of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park, Utah

Sandstone, Cliff-Dwelling Plants. Zion National Park, Utah. April 3, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A few plants grow in cracks in the face of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park, Utah.

This is most certainly not an “icon” photograph of Zion! It is essentially a nondescript little bit of high country sandstone with a few plants, photographed along the Mount Carmel highway through the park in a spot where a shadowed cliff face was washed with light reflected from another rocky face behind me and on the opposite side of a narrow section of the canyon. This softer and more diffused light filled the shadowed areas yet was warmer in color than the very early- and late-day light that can also be as soft.

I’m used to seeing these examples of desert plants that seem barely alive, consisting largely of tough and dry branches and often not having much green at all. I see such things a lot, for example, when I photograph in Death Valley or in some of the high desert areas east of the Sierra. What was new to me here was the juxtaposition of these dry country plants with the rich, warm tones of the southwest sandstone.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Rock Garden, Atmospheric Haze, Morning

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Rock Garden, Atmospheric Haze, Morning - Black and white photograph of a rock garden of sandstone towers in morning light, backed by atmospheric haze and barely visible La Salle Mountains, Arches National Park
Black and white photograph of a rock garden of sandstone towers in morning light, backed by atmospheric haze and barely visible La Salle Mountains, Arches National Park

Rock Garden, Atmospheric Haze, Morning. Arches National Park, Utah. April 7, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of a rock garden of sandstone towers in morning light, backed by atmospheric haze and barely visible La Salle Mountains, Arches National Park.

So far, each time I’ve thought I was hitting the end of the photographs from my early April weeklong trip to Utah, I come up with another one… and another… and another. I still have a few more waiting to be posted, but those are photographs that I had already worked up but held off posting for one reason or another. This one, however, may be the final one to actually emerge from the collection of exposures from the trip. (But I make no promises! There is one more that features some reflected light inside alcoves in sandstone that still may work.)

This photographed ended up in black and white for several reasons. I was sort of leaning that direction when I made the exposure, since the color components of the scene were both difficult to work with and a bit less than exciting. In addition, I like the way that black and white can sometimes abstract the shapes of things, perhaps taking them a few degrees further from their “real” nature. I had stopped alongside the road between the Windows Area and Wall Street as I begin my exit from Arches National Park on my last morning of shooting there. There was a lot of haze, especially when looking into the light, as this photograph does. The backlit haze is thick enough that the snow- and forest-covered La Salle Mountains, which actually fill the upper part of the frame, all almost impossible to see, and the foreground features gradually lose contrast as they progress away from the camera. However, because the light is in front of the camera and coming from just out of the right side of the frame, the edges of the rock towers gain a bit of extra definition against that hazy background.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.