Tag Archives: band

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

Cliff, Trees, Snow

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Cliff, Trees, Snow
A band of trees at the snowy base of the face of Half Dome

Cliff, Trees, Snow. Yosemite National Park, California. February 25, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A band of trees at the snowy base of the face of Half Dome

Very early on two late February mornings, I was up and out the door well before sunrise, walking though shallow snow and sub-twenty-degree air to a nearby meadow to photograph that start of the Yosemite Valley day. On both occasions, my main strategy was to look upwards toward the cliffs and use a long lens to pick out small scenes that might otherwise be missed in the immensity of the scene.

Eventually the sun came up and light broke over the upper rim of the Valley, gradually working its way down the steep walls, first on the north side and eventually on the south side where I was focusing my attention. But it would be a long time — probably noon at least — until the direct light made it to this spot at the base of Half Dome. The low contrast and blue tone of the light along with the banks of snow reinforces the frigid feeling of this scene, with a row of straight and tall trees managing to make a living on this ledge at the bottom of the giant face of the mountain.

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

Box Elder, Bend in the Creek

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Box Elder, Bend in the Creek - A Utah canyon creek winds through a narrow canyon and past a box elder tree.
A Utah canyon creek winds through a narrow canyon and past a box elder tree.

Box Elder, Bend in the Creek. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. October 23, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A Utah canyon creek winds through a narrow canyon and past a box elder tree.

This little stream and its canyon was the first place we stopped at on our late-October photographic trip through (mostly) Utah. Before this we had shot a bit in the “touristy” part of Zion NP, but this place was quite a bit more off the beaten track. Truth be told, this was also my first time wandering/wading/rock hopping my way up one of these small Southwest canyons – so it was a special bit of adventure for me, and one that I took to very quickly. Although I felt, to some extent, like I already “knew” these places from reading and seeing the work of other photographers, it was still something special to be in the place for the first time.

We began by walking up a portion of the wash through which the stream flowed after it left the canyon. I quickly discovered that here, unlike in “my Sierra,” one does not necessarily try to avoid the water – which wouldn’t really be possible anyway – but instead you walk in it, hop or wade back and forth across it, or tread the soft sand and mud along its banks. Some figure that you’ll get wet, and they wear light footwear. I went “old school” and put on a pair of Gore-Tex hiking boots and rolled up my pants enough to keep the bottoms out of the water.

The light in such places – as the veterans of such shooting know – is a complex and interesting thing. Most of the time you don’t really want direct sunlight, so you (or I, anyway) seek out shade. But you do want reflected light, coming off of the canyon walls high above, taking on the color of the rock, and diffusing down into the depths of the canyon. Contrary to my well-developed shoot-very-early-and-shoot-very-late instincts, you also typically want to shoot during the mid-morning hours and the afternoon, and if the canyon is deep enough and oriented the right direction you may even shoot right through the noon hour! What a concept: sleep in until the sun comes up, eat breakfast, and then go shoot! In this little twist in the stream, at just about the point where we turned around, the water takes on the color of the light reflected from the sandstone walls around the bend, and a single small box elder with golden leaves adds a spot of fall color.

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: Utah

Cliff, Green River Overlook

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Cliff, Green River Overlook - The canyon of the Green River beyond a band of sandstone cliffs, Canyonlands National Park, Utah
The canyon of the Green River beyond a band of sandstone cliffs, Canyonlands National Park, Utah

Cliff, Green River Overlook. Canyonlands National Park, Utah. April 6, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The canyon of the Green River beyond a band of sandstone cliffs, Canyonlands National Park, Utah.

I was in this spot primarily to photograph the late afternoon and evening light on the canyons, cliffs, plateaus, and mesas around the Green River. (I’ve recently posted a couple of other photographs of that subject.) One of the many striking aspects of the geology in this park is the sudden cliffs that drop from the edges of large flat areas. The upper portion of Canyonlands park, called the “Island in the Sky” is such a place. It is a large and relatively flat plateau, and if you disregard the more distant surroundings it seems like a prairie or perhaps a high desert grassland. But when you venture to its edges you most often find, on at least three of its sides, that there is a sudden drop off where the river systems below have eroded the surrounding terrain up to the edges of giant sandstone strata. I’m not an expert on the area, but one thing I read pointed out, if I recall correctly, that there is an upper plateau (the island in the sky), a 1000 foot drop, another plateau marked by the White Rim, and then another sudden drop into the depths of the surrounding river canyons.

So this bit of vertical sandstone is the upper portion of part of that first 1000-foot drop-off, in this case with the White Rim plateau and then some additional canyons beyond. Shooting late in the day, I was pointing the camera almost straight into the light – something that I often like to do. This allowed me to capture the faint shadow in the atmospheric haze formed as the light passed between two buttes at the upper edge of the frame. It also created a bit of a challenge in retaining detail in the fully shaded dark-colored cliff face! I was able to capture this in a single exposure that tested the dynamic range of my camera, and then bring back a bit of the cliff detail in post. Now, if I had just had someone stand, or better yet, dance on that cliff edge… Any volunteers for my next visit? ;-)

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.