Tag Archives: atmosphere

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

Towers, Windows, Mountains

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Towers, Windows, Mountains
Arches National Park towers and windows, backed by distant mountains in morning haze.

Towers, Windows, Mountains. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Arches National Park towers and windows, backed by distant mountains in morning haze.

The first time I visited Arches National Park, I was intentionally almost completely ignorant of the place. I had sort of connected it with Edward Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire,” but only as a sort of vague background to the larger points of that book. I knew that so-called Delicate Arch was located in this par. But that was pretty much it. So the first time we drove into the place late one afternoon I was almost completely unprepared for the otherworldly quality of the impossible formation in the park.

I made this photograph a few days later, on a morning of oddly hazy atmosphere that muted the details for the landscape, simplifying it and bringing attention to the larger forms. While this is red rock country, that is barely visible in this light. The solitary pinnacle is silhouetted against a panorama of other-worldly towers and windows backed by the barely visible outline of the La Sal Mountains.

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

Dust Storm, Desert Hills

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Dust Storm, Desert Hills
A dust storm begins to envelope desert mountains, Death Valley National Park.

Dust Storm, Desert Hills. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A dust storm begins to envelope desert mountains, Death Valley National Park.

Last year we spent nearly a week in Death Valley in the Spring, photographing landscape and plants and flowers. I go every year, usually camping, but this time we stayed in one of the lodging facilities in the park, heading out from there on various one-day adventures. (I like camping in the park… but I don’t mind sleeping in a bed and eating good food either…)

We experienced some fairly big dust storms during this visit — not the biggest I’ve seen by far, but powerful enough to make an impression. One was building on this afternoon, so we headed in that direction to see what photographic opportunities might arise. Near the end of the day the sky was almost apocalyptic, with clouds above, raging dust storm below, and sunset color. But this photograph comes from earlier in the day when the effect was more subtle. We stopped close to these rounded desert hills and photographed the landscape as the more distant mountains gradually were obscured by the increasing dust.

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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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Across Owens Valley

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Across Owens Valley
Look across Owens Valey from a perch high in and Eastern Sierra canyon

Across Owens Valley. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Look across Owens Valey from a perch high in and Eastern Sierra canyon.

The east side entries to the Sierra Nevada high country bring all sorts of associations for me. My earliest experience with the range was always on the west side, coming across the great Central Valley, rising into the foothills, entering the great forests, and much later finally getting in sight of the highest, rocky peaks. My first trip to the east side, at least the first one I can recall, came much later. A friend roused me from my comfortable west-side stupor. He had gone to grad school at UCLA, and thus his orientation to the range was to drive up through the desert, parallel the immense eastern escarpment for miles, and then ascent abruptly into the range. After going into the range that way once… I was hooked.

Almost any east side entrance or exit will also produce long views into the depths of Owens Valley, and across that dry valley to the Inyo and White Mountains. These comprise quite a mighty range on their own, and the many are often surprised by their first view, when they discovered the there are peaks to the east and are just as high as those of the Sierra. I made this photograph near a trailhead in one of the east side canyons. We were just heading out for a week of backcountry photography in Sequoia-Kings Canyon, and as we started up the trail I paused to look back to the east.

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.

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

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

Sand Storm, Desert Ridges

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Sand Storm, Desert Ridges
The dust from a nearby sand storm obscures a series of ascending ridges.

Sand Storm, Desert Ridges. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The dust from a nearby sand storm obscures a series of ascending ridges..

On this afternoon I made quite a few photographs, and they range from a few with striking sunset and dusk colors to others that are almost devoid of details in the blowing sand and dust. Yes, it was a sand storm day, and that is precisely what drew us to this portion of the valley. High winds from the southwest were raking the sand dunes and raising giant, fast-moving clouds of sand and dust. They raced across the valley, traveling northeast toward the Amargosa Mountain range.

I made this photograph very close to the point where we entered the cloud of dust/sand. We had come up from a part of the valley further south, and as we got closer to the dunes and the source of the haze the dust began to obscure the sky and the view. We stopped here before entering the worse of the cloud and made a few photographs looking into it, with the tall mountains to the north nearly obscured

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.

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