Tag Archives: badlands

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

Red Cliffs, Sunrise

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Red Cliffs, Sunrise
Sunrise light on Red Cliffs and badlands, Death Valley National Park.

Red Cliffs, Sunrise. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Sunrise light on Red Cliffs and badlands, Death Valley National Park.

There is a little story behind this photograph of the Red Cliffs, an almost-icon in Death Valley. The feature is a striking, eroded formation close to a famous park location. I decided to photograph here on the final morning of my recent visit to the park since I was looking for something that I could visit early and still have time to pack up my nearby camp and begin the long drive home. Of course, timing wasn’t the only issue — I had explored the location earlier and found it to be pretty interesting!

The window for the best sunrise light here is brief, since the light doesn’t get here right away. It arrives soon enough that it still has the golden hour character, but that starts to fade quickly. One thing I like about this perspective is that it places the distant, haze-shrouded peaks right behind Red Cliffs. (What I like less is that a very close inspection may reveal a place in the scene where a lot of sunrise spectators are standing!)

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

Eroded Badlands Hills

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Eroded Badlands Hills
“Eroded Badlands Hills” — Deeply eroded badlands hills and more distant mountains in morning light, Death Valley National Park.

Special Note: Patty and I are presenting a Silicon Valley Open Studios event on May 21 and 22. Look us up (Dan | Patty) or contact us for information. Come and see our prints!

You could look at this photograph in several ways, but I think the complex patterns of this landscape are the main attraction. Recently I read an article about photography that suggested (to paraphrase) that landscape photography aspires toward abstraction. I like that idea a lot. I feel there should be more to a landscape photograph than an ostensible “record” of things in front of the camera. Ideally photographs can be viewed on multiple levels simultaneously — our relationship to the place and the way we see it, the sum of compositional elements, some level of mystery, suggestions of things not contained in the frame, emotional implications, and more.

This feels like one of those photographs to me. You could respond to the remarkable nature of the landscape that was in front of the camera. You could also consider the visual forms from an abstract perspective — the complex patterns of elements in contrary and parallel motion. You are free to ponder where this portrayal of the landscape fits into the larger scheme of landscape art. And who am I to try to stop you from looking for relations to other, larger things?

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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

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

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

Desert Mountains and Valley

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Desert Mountains and Valley
Badlands, mountains, and a valley, Death Valley National Park.

Desert Mountains and Valley. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Badlands, mountains, and a valley, Death Valley National Park.

As I continue (still!) working my way though this year’s Death Valley photographs, a familiar process is at work. I first go to images that jump out at me or which I specifically recall making. In some ways, this is the easiest part of the process. Then I dig into the archive more carefully, considering photographs that seem less obvious, but which “work” once I spend time with them. At about this point I imagine that I have finished, but the thought that I’ve missed something gnaws at me, and inevitably I head back into the files again and gradually find subtler images that I like.

This is one of those later-stage photographs. On this morning I made several exposures from this spot, and two others initially jumped out at me as “the shots” from this place. When I looked at this one, there were things I liked about it, but I had other photographs that I wanted to deal with first. When I finally came back to it I think I started to realize what I must have instinctively found interesting about this scene when I pushed the shutter button. It is a large landscape, looking across bare foreground hill into a large valley, and toward desert mountains distant enough to introduce the effects of atmospheric haze.

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

Winding Canyon #2

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Winding Canyon #2
Morning light in a winding desert canyon, Death Valley National Park.

Winding Canyon #2. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Morning light in a winding desert canyon, Death Valley National Park.

We arrived at this spot in a badlands canyon after the morning golden hour but a bit earlier than I usually get there. The route to this view passes by so much interesting stuff that I inevitably get sidetracked, and I tend to reach this spot after the best light. But on this morning, having photographed here not too long ago, I resisted some of those early temptations. The light was still appealing and the desert haze added a nice quality to the atmosphere.

A few weeks ago I shared another photograph of this scene — that one was presented in horizontal landscape orientation. Why share another when that is the biggest difference? Lots of reasons! Sometimes one or the other format is obviously more successful, but in this case they are different but equally valid ways of seeing this landscape. I don’t subscribe to the idea that there is one “right” way to see a landscape.

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.