Tag Archives: cliff

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

Kolob Canyon, Morning

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“Kolob Canyon, Morning” — Morning light slants over the top of sandstone cliffs above early autumn foliage in Kolob Canyon, Zion National Park

I finally made it into the Kolob Canyon area of Zion National Park this October. From what I can tell, this area is much less frequently visited than the more popular and accessible Zion Canyon area. It seems to me that the park service sort of wants it this way, which makes sense to me. There is almost no formal development of this portion of the park aside from a very modest visitor center near the entrance. Along the dead-end road into this portion of the park, you find little besides a few turn-outs and parking lots at some trailheads. In addition, the entrance to this section of the park requires a significant drive from the most popular lodging areas in places like Springdale.

We arrived on a very cold early autumn morning when many trees and bushes were just beginning the fall color changes. In most places things were still very green, but here and there it was possible to find some nice displays of color. Near the location of this photograph the road made a sort of horseshoe bend across the lower portion of the canyon, and I spotted a lot of things that seemed to be photo-worthy to me: the early morning sun light beams slanting through morning haze across the upper section of the canyon, the dry waterfall at its furthest-back point, the always-beautiful red rock cliffs, and the colorful foliage beginning to appear in the canyon.

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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

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Photographs: Arizona, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Approaching Storm, Monument Valley

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Approaching Storm, Monument Valley - A storm front approaches the iconic towers of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park
A storm front approaches the iconic towers of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park

Approaching Storm, Monument Valley. Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Arizona. October 12, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A storm front approaches the iconic towers of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park

Considering that we only passed through Monument Valley on a drive between two other locations and that we happened to arrive when a storm front was passing through, I have to consider myself lucky to have made any photographs of the location at all on this visit. We were on the long drive between Moab and Springdale, so we unfortunately could not afford to hang around long waiting for idea conditions – so I went ahead and shot in the “weather.”

Quite a few of the photographs were made in actual rain – as in, it was raining where I was shooting, or I was shooting into or through curtains for rain. However, the nature of this storm was that a line of weather would come through, there would be a bit of clearing, and then the next squall line would arrive. So between the bouts of rain there were some moments of sunshine, and the sunshine not only dried things out a bit but it also made the clouds more visible Here a very large cell was building over some of the iconic Monument Valley formations. I chose the vertical format and only included a bit of the solid ground so as to emphasize the size and height of the clouds.

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: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Red Maple Trees, Autumn

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Red Maple Trees, Autumn - Autumn red maple trees growing against a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park
Autumn red maple trees growing against a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park

Red Maple Trees, Autumn. Zion National Park, Utah. October 22 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Autumn red maple trees growing against a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park

Sometimes I just have to make a photograph that is full of color, and finding these trees constituted one of those “sometimes.” During the latter part of October we passed through Zion on our way to points east, so we spent most of a day along the Mount Carmel Highway looking for various subjects that can be found there in a fall. Among them, we were looking for autumn foliage. (The color comes to this high country area of Zion while things are still mostly green back down in Zion Canyon.) At this point some cottonwood and box elder trees were changing, though there was a lot of green still around. However, the red maples, which seem to change first, were at peak color conditions in many spots.

As we drove along the park road, we were more or less hanging out the windows, looking for those combinations of light (quality and angle), color (or trees and rocks), and geology that might make good photographs. Most often we found ourselves looking down into narrow canyons where colorful trees lined the banks of the stream beds. Sometimes we photographed from above, but the most productive shooting involved hiking down into these canyons and then slowly walking them while looking intently for subjects. Of course, the red maples don’t require a lot of careful looking! This group of trees was in a shady curve in the bottom of a canyon, so I found a frame-filling bunch of branches and leaves and made a few exposures.

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

Balanced Rock and Cliff, Sunrise

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Balanced Rock and Cliff, Sunrise - Dawn light on Balanced Rock and cliff face, Arches National Park
Dawn light on Balanced Rock and cliff face, Arches National Park

Balanced Rock and Cliff, Sunrise. Arches National Park, Utah. October 10, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dawn light on Balanced Rock and cliff face, Arches National Park

When I first visited Utah for photography, only in April of this year, I think that Arches National Park probably provoked the most serious “wow” response from me. I loved each of the parks we visited in different way, but the first-impression of Arches was, for me, stunning. It probably helped that I had more or less intentionally done no research on the place before our arrival. It also helped that my first view of the park was on a spontaneous golden-hour drive into the park from Moab late in the day, when we found ourselves with more time after arriving than we had planned on. I was stunned to see what seem to be essentially impossible formations throughout the park – the arches themselves, of course, but also the tall thin towers, long and narrow fins of sandstone, large rocks balancing on pedestals, and more.

On the second visit, this fall, I was still impressed by these amazing formation, but I also began to look past them a bit more and start to see a few of the subtle things that are there as well, and to begin to understand a few of the patterns of the place – where and when certain types of special light or atmosphere might occur. On this morning I had returned to re-shoot something that had not worked out quite the way I planned on the previous visit. Having completed that task, we moved on up the road, looking for other opportunities, of which there were many. Here, as we passed one of the large towers in the Courthouse area, I saw a photograph that juxtaposed several things: the silhouetted shape of the balanced rock on the far ridge, the brilliant morning sidelight on the nearby sandstone tower, and the early morning sun slanting across the petrified dunes area, picking up the higher points on the terrain.

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.