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

Desert Morning, Light and Shadow

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Desert Morning, Light and Shadow
Desert Morning, Light and Shadow

Desert Morning, Light and Shadow. Death Valley National Park, California. April 2, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light and shadows play across the immense landscape of southern Death Valley as storm clouds build.

This photograph reminds me of the immense scale of the Death Valley landscape. Photographed from high in the Panamint Range very early on a morning when a storm was building—it would later snow in our location—the contrast between the cloud-shadowed foreground and the early morning light in the distant valley emphasizes the vast distances in the scene. The light began closing down essentially right at dawn as the clouds of a Pacific weather front came in from the west behind us. (As I made this photograph light snow was falling on the ridge above and behind my position.) The dark clouds building over our position along the crest of the Panamint Range were beginning to extend out over the Valley and build over each of the ranges extending into the distance.

As I made this photograph the main portion of Death Valley, below us to the left and extending into the lower part of the frame here, had fallen into shadow, along with the range of mountains running along its eastern edge. The clouds had not yet worked their way to the south, and where the Valley turns toward the east there was early morning sunlight still spilling into the lower section of the Valley and lighting distant mountains and arid salt flats and atmospheric haze. Even further in the distance some thickening clouds are visible above a single very distant peak.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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: Desert, Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Mono Lake, Thunderstorm

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Mono Lake, Thunderstorm
Mono Lake, Thunderstorm

Mono Lake, Thunderstorm. Mono Lake, California. July 23, 2007.© Copyright 2007 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Eastern Sierra Nevada thunderstorms build over Mono Lake, Mono Craters, and Lee Vining, California.

Mono Lake can be an unforgiving place in which to try to make photographs during the day, but sometimes one gets lucky! It is a wonderful place, but if you only know it from photographs – which, of course, tend to be made at the most appealing times – you might not know that it is often hot and hazy and dry during the day. These are among the reasons that it is a place often photographed at dawn or at sunset on days when the clouds are interesting. (The latter poses its own set of problems, since the Sierra Nevada range begins to block the light well before actual sunset.)

But I did get lucky on this late July afternoon. It was thunderstorm weather, so there were some very impressive clouds floating around. However, the clouds did not completely fill the sky, so patches of light were moving across the landscape – in this photograph one illuminates the green area at far right along the shore and, more importantly, the Mono Craters beyond the far shore of the lake. And the vegetation around the lake was still green, or at least green enough to look alive in this light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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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.

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Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: White Mountains

Owens Valley Sky

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Owens Valley Sky
Owens Valley Sky

Owens Valley Sky. Owens Valley, California. August 6, 2005. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dramatic thunderstorms begin to build above Owens Valley, flanked by the White Mountains and the eastern Sierra Nevada range.

If there is any good news about starting to run out of space on my hard drive, it might be that it encourages me to begin the process of reviewing my tens of thousands of archived raw image files, and that leads me to look through files that I haven’t revisited in a long time – and during this process I find photographs that I had forgotten about. Not only is it worthwhile to rediscover these photographs that ended up buried in the archive, but it is also a chance to recall some of the trips on which the photographs were made.

This photograph is yet another (of many!) that wouldn’t have happened at all if it were not for a whole unpredictable series of events and circumstances. I’ll make the story as short as I can, but it is still a bit involved. Almost every summer I share a long pack trip with a group of my friends. In 2005 we had come up with a 14-day trip along a good portion of the John Muir Trail between roughly the Ediza Lake area and Bishop Pass, which included one of the very few sections of the JMT that I had not hiked. We started at Agnew Meadow, headed up past Shadow Lake, turned south on the JMT, stopped at Reds Meadow, continued on to the Duck and Purple Lakes area… where I started to feel like I might be coming down with some sort of bug. Discretion being the better part of valor and all that, I decided that the prudent thing was to bail out of the trip and exit to Mammoth Lakes since the idea of getting sick on the fourth day of a 14-day hike with a large group was not appealing.

So I hiked out. Ironically, once I crossed the pass to head down to the Mammoth area, I recovered – but it was now too late to rejoin my group since they would be two days ahead of me on the trail at this point. Since I was back at my car now and feeling just fine I figured that I might as well do something else before heading home, so I decided to drive up into the White Mountains and visit the Bristlecone Pine forest. On the way back down from the Whites I just happened to pull out at this spot where the high desert terrain was extra green around a creek, on an afternoon when monsoon conditions were leading to a buildup of afternoon clouds above the Sierra, the Whites, and Owens Valley between the two ranges.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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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.

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Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Morning Squall, South Tufa

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Morning Squall, South Tufa
Morning Squall, South Tufa

Morning Squall, South Tufa. Mono Lake, California. July 25, 2010. © Copyright 2010 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The shoreline of Mono Lake as a morning squall drops rain over the Sierra Crest near Lee Vining, California.

This photograph is, in a number of ways, a sort of happy accident. I had been camped in the Tuolumne Meadows area for several days, doing photography in that area of the Yosemite National Park Sierra Nevada high country. On the previous day I had been caught out on a hike in a surprise thunderstorm without rain gear, so I was very conscious of the weather. That evening it occurred to me that given the approach of some monsoonal moisture and the already wet weather, that it was possible that interesting clouds might form in the Mono Lake area the next morning. (Mono at dawn is a spectacular place, but since I’ve photographed there quite a few times I don’t necessarily shoot there at dawn every time I’m in the area unless there is a chance of special conditions.)

That night I peered out of my tent from time to time to see if any clouds were interrupting the light of the full moon, thinking that this might be enough to get me to change my plans for morning photography and make the drive to Mono Lake. At one point a few clouds did dim the moon light, and a bit later a few showers came through. At this point I was pretty certain that the cloud potential would be there in the morning so I decided to get up a bit earlier and drive to South Tufa.

I thought I was up early enough. However, as I drove down highway 395 south of Lee Vining I realized that I had miscalculated and that the sun was already hitting the clouds! I experienced the photographer’s conundrum – shoot what I see here now, or race on hoping to shoot the planned thing. I decided to stop and shoot the very first light on the Sierra crest from 395 before heading on, but now my original plan for a pre-dawn visit to Mono was out the window. Soon I headed on down the road, turned off onto eastbound 120 and made my way to South Tufa just as the first sun was striking the lake shore. I quickly made it out to the tufa area and saw (how could anyone miss it!?) this giant cloud cell blowing up over the Sierra crest just north of Lee Vining.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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.