Tag Archives: badlands

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

Badlands, Morning Light

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Badlands, Morning Light
Soft morning sunlight on colorful badlands terrain, Death Valley National Park.

Badlands, Morning Light. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Soft morning sunlight on colorful badlands terrain, Death Valley National Park.

This area of Death Valley attracts me on almost every visit to this desert landscape. Unlike many of the places I like to visit in the park, it isn’t in the “back of beyond,” and I often photograph here on a morning when I don’t want to travel too far, for example on the final morning of a visit. Like many badlands locations, this area provides an astonishing wealth of potential photographic subjects, and their appearance changes with the light.

In keeping with the usual practice, we visited early one morning on this trip, arriving in the area before sunrise so that we would be ready for the arrival of the first light. This morning sun can be intense, but a bit of high cloudiness softened the light a bit, and this made the colors a bit more visible.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Morning, Beneath Desert Mountains

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Morning, Beneath Desert Mountains
Morning light comes to badland terrains beneath tall desert mountains.

Morning, Beneath Desert Mountains. © Copyright 2022.G Dan Mitchell.

Morning light comes to badlands terrain beneath tall desert mountains.

On the final morning of my late-January visit to Death Valley National Park I decided to visit a location that I rarely photograph. I suppose there were two reasons for my choice. It wasn’t that far from where I was camped, and I wanted to get back to camp by mid-morning to take things down in preparation for my departure. In addition, it is a location that, frankly, hasn’t attracted me all that much for photography. I had been there before several times and came away with little to show for it. (Despite this, one client did purchase a number of prints from this location some years ago.)

An offhand comment by a friend had suggested a different way to look that the place, and as I looked at it from a distance earlier in the week I saw some things that caught my attention. So I headed out there before dawn on this final morning and followed a trail out to the edge of some interesting badlands country. As I worked that subject the light was working its way down the face of the bare desert mountains to the northwest, so I turned my camera that direction as the play of light and shadow evolved.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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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

Ridges and Light

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Ridges and Light
Morning light on curved ridges, Death Valley National Park.

Ridges and Light. © Copyright 2022.G Dan Mitchell.

Morning light on curved ridges, Death Valley National Park.

There are many ways to tell the story of a landscape. One approach is to go for the whole thing, the epic landscape, the big view, and to put everything in the frame. This can work, and it may produce impressive and powerful images of great scale. And, to be sure, Death Valley National Park’s landscape lends itself to this with its expansive vistas, immense mountains ranges, and other striking features.

Another way to say something about a landscape is to go in the opposite direction and let small “excerpts” from the larger scene present aspects of it. The more I photograph a place the more I trend in this direction. You’ll still find me looking at those big views, but more and more I look for small bits and pieces. The texture of these rounded ridges is found all over Death Valley and is usually eroded into some combination of gullies and small, smooth hills. Here the warm-colored early morning light is sweeping across these hills, contrasting with the cooler tones of the shadows.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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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

Light and Dark

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Light and Dark
Highly contrasing geological formations in morning light, Death Valley National Park.

Light and Dark. © Copyright 2022.G Dan Mitchell.

Highly contrasing geological formations in morning light, Death Valley National Park.

To be honest, much of the Death Valley landscape, as remarkable as it is, tends to feature somewhat neutral tones and colors — many grays and tans and light browns. This is particularly true outside the early and late hours of the day, when warm light often intensifies the subtle colors of the terrain. This neutral quality is actually one of the virtues of the landscape in most cases, particularly in the way that lets light and shadow emerge as primary visual components.

But sometimes a bit more contrast in the landscape can be a good thing, so when I find it here I almost always look for ways to photograph it. This simple scene is a fine example. The early morning sun was just beginning to strike the white colored hill, lining its right flank with rim light. Meanwhile the background slope, composed of much darker material interrupted by lighter strata, was still in shadow.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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