Tag Archives: america

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

Juniper Forest and a Wash

July 6, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Juniper trees on red rock soil next to a shallow canyon

My recollection of this afternoon is that we set out down the west side of the park without a particular plan in mind. Eventually we photographed in a deep canyon with tall sandstone walls, but at times we were challenged by trying to find interesting subjects. The light was harsh, but it was also interrupted in awkward ways by clouds — occasionally producing interesting patterns of light and shade, but also sometimes killing the interesting light.

In this area the land slopes down from west to east, following the contours of the underlying strata. For this reason, well before the end of the day the light is already coming across this gently rising terrain at a low angle relative to its incline. Here that light is sweeping across a landscape of red rock, juniper trees, and the beginnings of a small red rock canyon.

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

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Grove of Slender Aspens, Autumn

July 4, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An eastern Sierra grove of slender aspens with a hint of fall color remaining

There are interesting subtleties to the autumn transition of aspen color in the eastern Sierra. Unlike forests in some other areas, where the trees are more similar across wide areas, and thus tend to change colors at the same time, in the Sierra the color change has many variations of region, climate, moisture, and elevation. It is quite possible to arrive at a grove to find that almost all of the leaves have fallen… only to visit another grove not too far away where the color change is still getting underway.

This is a somewhat unusual little grove. The trees are very slender and crowded closely tighter. They are also, generally, smaller than those in the more-or-less typical Sierra aspen grove, where trees may be larger but also tend to be bent and even misshapen. These slender trees stand tall and straight, and at the time I made the photograph they had lost nearly all of their leaves, leaving a somewhat ghostly forest of bare trunks.

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

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

Juniper and Striped Sandstone

July 2, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A vertically striped sandstone cliff behind a juniper tree

My recollection is that we had driven into this deep canyon at Capitol Reef late in the day, and that we stopped to photograph as we began to head back out of the canyon not long before sunset. Because of the late hour, although it was still daytime, the light was blocked here by the very tall walls of this narrow canyon.

We stopped here largely because of the remarkable vertical stains on the smooth sandstone walls. In many places this layer of sandstone is almost monolithic, but here the staining produced sharp vertical lines and broke up the otherwise solid features of the rock. Near the base of the cliff a few boulders stood, and on the higher areas right next to the cliff a few trees managed to grow.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Shoreline, First Morning Light

July 1, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

First morning light comes to the forested shoreline of a Sierra Nevada backcountry lake

Near the end of the summer of 2014 I ventured into the Yosemite backcountry with a group of friends and photographers for a week of landscape photography work, first at a somewhat isolated lake and then near a more popular location. Although I’ve been a backpacker for years, accustomed to slogging along with a big backpack carrying all of my own gear, on this trip we were supported by pack train. In fact, we had stupendous support. All of our non-photographic gear was packed in to the first location. A few days later a pack train returned and moved our gear to the next location. (Meanwhile we hiked a cross-country route to get there, following a trajectory that stock could not use.) And finally at the end of the trip the packers came back again and schlepped our gear back out to civilization. I think I could get used to this — though I still very much enjoy the quiet and slow pace of self-contained backpacking.

We were at the lake for three or four days, long enough go venture beyond the obvious things that one sees when first arriving at a place. We had time to return to subjects and reconsider them a few days later, possibly in different light or at a different time of day. We were also able to push out boundaries outward a bit from the lake itself, climbing a few of the nearby promontories. And, always, we had the luxury of rolling out of sleeping bags before dawn, walking a few steps to the lakeshore, and beginning the day’s work. This photograph was made not more than five minutes from camp as the first light began to work down to lake level.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: america

Juniper Forest and a Wash

Grove of Slender Aspens, Autumn

Juniper and Striped Sandstone

Shoreline, First Morning Light

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