Tag Archives: blue

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

First Light, Southern Death Valley

January 12, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

As seen from Aguereberry Point, first dawn light spills across the lower end of Death Valley.

I have previously photographed from this location high in the Panamint Range and overlooking a vast portion of Death Valley National Park and its surroundings. The view stretches east to 11,000+’ peaks in Nevada and west to the crest of the Sierra Nevada, and great distances north and south to places and features that I cannot identify. My previous visits had all been late in the day, and I had often wondered what the location might be like at the start of the day. So, on this visit to Death Valley, a trip to Aguereberry Point before dawn was on my agenda.

As usual, I awoke well before dawn at my camp site back at Stovepipe Wells. (You can often tell if there are other photographers about – in the dark period an hour or more before sunrise you hear people quietly get up, quickly start their engines, and drive away.) I headed up into the Panamints and turned off at the start of the six-mile gravel road that goes to this point, and arrived just before the first colorful light began to light up the sky – and I was pleased to see that there were some interesting clouds. I have been fascinated by this view over the shoulder of a ridge dropping down toward the Valley above Trail Canyon, so I composed a photograph that juxtaposed this diagonal with the end of the Black Mountains across the valley and the light-filled atmosphere beyond where the very first sun was coming across lower Death Valley.

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

Ridge Above Tucki Wash, Dawn

January 9, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

First dawn light on a stratified ridge above Tucki Wash along the base of the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park.

I spent a good portion of the week following New Year’s Day in Death Valley National Park. My goals were to earlier in the seasons when the days were shorter and more “good light” was available, to perhaps encounter cloudy skies from a passing weather system or two, and to both shoot some new subjects and shoot some familiar ones in somewhat different ways. I think that I succeeded with most of these goals, though those storm front clouds were elusive. (This is a very strange and troubling season for California weather. At a time when the Sierra are usually covered in winter snows… all of the high trans-Sierra passes are still open, and the east side of the range looks pretty much like it might normally look in, say, July.)

On one morning I decided to visit a favorite overlook high in the Panamint Range very early in the morning. I’ve shot here a number of times in the past, but always late in the day during sunset and dusk hours. While getting up an hour and a half before dawn to drive to such a place is always a bit of a challenge, at least the sunrise isn’t quite as early at this time of year. On the other hand, it is colder! (Those unfamiliar with the Death Valley seasons may think of it as an entirely hot and dry place, but it gets quite cold there this time of year.) When I got up the temperature down in the Valley at my camp site at Stovepipe Wells was in the thirties. Surprisingly, the temperature rose into the low fifties as I ascended into the mountains, and when I reached my goal at a bit above 6000′ it was no colder than the Valley at this hour.

I arrived before dawn, but just as the pre-dawn light show was beginning. On this morning I had perhaps the best clouds of the entire trip, and they lit up shortly after I arrived and got my equipment ready. (Photos of that moment will likely come a bit later.) As the sun finally rose above the horizon the interesting light began to work its way down, starting with the higher peaks and then descending past the lower ridges to finally reach the Valley itself. This photograph shows the first light striking an unnamed (as far as I’ve been able to determine) spur ridge the projects eastward into the Valley from the massive bulk of Tucki Mountain. In the far distance are the low mountains and washes along the far side of the Valley, and the are also just beginning to pick up the first light.

Shooting in these rapidly evolving conditions that are not entirely predictable is more of an action sport than a sedate and contemplative experience, at least during the first minutes of light as it works its way across and down the landscape, often surprising me by showing up in places I had not thought to look. At one point I had photographed the cloud-filled sky but lamented a bit that the mountains below that shot were a bit dark and drab. I look away for a moment and when I looked back this intense and saturate light had hit those very mountains… so I turned and quickly began to photograph them.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

East Side of Bishop Pass

January 8, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Trail and meadows below the east side of Bishop Pass, eastern Sierra Nevada range.

This photograph comes from about a dozen years ago. I recently came across it while sorting through older photograph files for a variety of reasons – general clearing out of old images, searching for photographs of a particular subject for a client, and seeing what older images I might have missed when I first made them. When I saw this photograph it evoked a whole series of fun recollections.

Nearly weeks earlier, I had begun a two-week-long backpack trip along a section of the John Muir Trail. At that time, the only section of the JMT that I had not hiked (at least once!) was an area between approximately Shadow Lake and the Muir Trail Ranch – and this was to be the trip on which I covered this remaining bit of trail. The trip started just fine, though in some territory that is not exactly my favorite portion of the range – the low areas around Devils Postpile. After passing by that national monument we headed south, passing Duck Lake and camping at Purple Lake.

The next morning I woke up feeling a bit under the weather, an unusual experience for me on the trail. The next leg of the trip was to take us through an area without an easy exit, and I became concerned about what would happen if my “feeling poorly” deteriorated into actually being sick. I reluctantly decided to leave my group to continue without me, and I backtracked over Duck Pass and down into the Mammoth Lakes area and headed home. (Ironically, by the time I got out I was feeling fine…)

Ending a trip this way just didn’t feel right, so I hatched a plan to show up and run into my friends on the last day of their trip. Since they were coming out over Bishop Pass, I crossed that pass into beautiful Dusy Basin a day earlier, and on the next morning hiked down the canyon so that I could be casually sitting on a rock as they came up the trail from LeConte Canyon. I have rarely seen people as surprised as they were when they found me! After our reunion and joining them for their last trail night, the next morning we were up early to hike out over Bishop Pass. This photograph was made shortly after we crossed the pass and began our descent to the trailhead.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Textures, Photographs: Urban/Street

“Feel Better”

January 3, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A barber “pole” with the words “Feel Better” and a hand painted laundry sign on the exterior wall of a dilapidated building, San Jose, California.

Another photograph made while wandering about in my neighborhood. These signs are on the side of a very old and very dilapidated little wood-sided building that houses a barber shop and a cleaners. The building is leaning so badly and on such uneven ground that it is a wonder that it is still standing and that the city still allows people to occupy it. Yet, it seems like the two businesses inside, which give the appearance of having been there a long time, continue to hang on.

The crazily tilting, off-kilter walls along the side of the building first caught my attention, so I went around to the side to make some photographs of this wall. Once I got closer I was intrigued by the barber “pole” (or the cheapest imaginable imitation of the real thing, nailed to the wall) with its odd label, “FEEL BETTER” near the bottom. The hand-painted sign for the cleaners was also interesting. Today it seems like most business signs have been extruded at the same business sign factory, and they often share a uniform slickness and lack of individual character. Not true of this sign! I looks like perhaps the owner painted it himself or herself, and that this person had just enough painting skill to pull it off, but not so much as to be overly slick, to put it mildly. The oddly spaces hand-lettering and the “personalized” paintings of suits hanging on hangars are not the sort of thing you usually see in this area, but they do have a certain charm.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: blue

First Light, Southern Death Valley

Ridge Above Tucki Wash, Dawn

“Feel Better”

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