Tag Archives: cliff

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

Curves, Desert Canyon

May 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Small dry plants grow in a curving crack in a two-toned desert canyon, Death Valley National Park

Passing through this deep and narrow canyon, I always watch the rock walls for little odds and ends of shape and form and color and occasional surprising bits of vegetation. If you had asked me about this section of canyon after my first passage some years ago, I might well have mentioned how narrow and deep it is and perhaps how dusty. I might have commented on the way the bottom remains in shade even in the midday heat. But repeated visits have shown me that there is much more to see, and the fact that I still see new things on every visit tells me that there is far more yet to be discovered.

On one hand this is a pretty plain photograph of some rocks with cracks running through them. On the other hand, I think there are some stories behind the scent that are interesting to contemplate. At least I think so! If you look closely you will see some very dry plants that have grown in this curving crack. It is hard to imagine a more inhospitable place for a plant to grow—perhaps a dozen feet up the nearly solid rock wall of an arid and hot desert canyon. Yet somehow these plants found a way, as did and do many other plants throughout this desert landscape. Behind the small, delicate, and even intimate element of these plants is the backdrop of a small section of a massive rock wall that towers out of sight above the frame of the photograph. Here is a boundary between two sorts of rock—I’m not enough to a geologist to make technical observations, but I do note that the upper layer is darker and more solid while the lower is lighter and has more cracks in its surface. From the upper left a crack follows the junction of the two rock layers, but for some reason the crack leaves the junction and curves back upwards into the darker rock, and it is in this surprising bit of geological dissonance that the small plants took root.

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: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Winter Meadow, Forest

April 28, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Forest and snow-topped cliffs above a winter meadow, Yosemite Valley

During this distressingly dry season in California, our three-day visit to Yosemite Valley in early March was a welcome relief. It was raining when we arrived, and it remained cloudy and wet for the entire period, with breaks in the rain but not the clouds. We were there for the opening of the Yosemite Renaissance XXIX exhibit, which continues in the Visitor Center Gallery through early March. (Stop in and take a look if you make it to the Valley. This is a wonderful annual juried show of art related to Yosemite and the Sierra. And, yes, one of my prints is there.)

The scene here is a popular and well-known Cook’s Meadow. As is normal in the winter, the grasses that are so green in spring and early summer have gone dormant, as have most of the other plants in the meadow itself. This is such a familiar scene—though always a beautiful one—that I most often would not stop to photograph. However, among the brown tones the one spots of bright red among the foreground brush caught my attention, and the light had a warm and glowing quality that was special. The light falling on the forest was very soft, filtered though thin clouds above and to the east, and snow from the passing storm covered the upper reaches of the cliff walls around the Valley.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Granite Face, New Snow

April 22, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

New snow on ledges and trees at the base of the face of Half Dome

This photograph was made the morning after a Sierra winter storm had coated the high country of the Yosemite Sierra with a fresh coat of snow. The snow did not quite make it all the way down to the bottom of Yosemite Valley, but it covered most of the slopes, fissures, and trees of the walls and peaks around the Valley.

I don’t often photograph Half Dome—I can go days in the Valley without doing so at times—but I did photograph it a few times on this trip. At one point I photographed it wreathed in moving clouds and fog, barely visible. Here I photographed the famous face of the mountain, though I wanted to focus on the combination of new snow and small trees dwarfed by the giant and nearly smooth granite face, and to capture something of the cold, hard feeling of this winter view.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Horsetail Fall

March 11, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Horsetail Fall in afternoon light, Yosemite Valley

As you may already know, Yosemite Valley’s Horsetail Fall draws visitors and especially photographers ever winter, roughly during the last half of February or so. During this period a miraculous conjunction of sunset light, a gap in the ridges to the west, and a wispy waterfall dropping over the edge of El Capitan may produce a momentary “natural firewall” for those positioned to the east of the waterfall. The sight is quite something… but in some ways it is almost more amazing to encounter hundreds of people who have traveled great distances to stand in cold or even snowy meadows to gaze upwards in hopes of seeing this ephemeral light.

I have photographed it in the past so I generally do not photograph it any more. In fact, I like to joke that one of the nice things about Horsetail Fall is that it clears the rest of the Valley of photographers in the evening! ;-) I must have confused at least a few people when I was there on the first day of March, at a time when people are still hoping to catch the phenomenon. We pulled into one of the two popular areas for viewing the fall, but in the late afternoon, well before the light was even hinting at what it could do later on. I looked up at the cliff high above and saw that recent rains had brought the fall to life, and that winds across the upper face of El Capitan were blowing the fall too and fro and carrying its wispy spray in all directions. The rock face was uniformly damp, and the late afternoon light was bright and silvery on the rock. I put a long lens on the camera and pointed it up toward this bright subject and made a few exposures as the wind whipped the falling water back and forth. Then I packed up and left… just as the evening throng of photographers was arriving and finding their positions to photograph what they hoped would be colorful sunset light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: cliff

Curves, Desert Canyon

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Winter Meadow, Forest

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Granite Face, New Snow

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Horsetail Fall

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

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