Tag Archives: cliff

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

The Watchman and the Virgin River, Morning

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The Watchman and the Virgin River, Morning - The virgin River curves towards the Watchman in early morning light, Zion National Park, Utah.
The virgin River curves towards the Watchman in early morning light, Zion National Park, Utah.

The Watchman and the Virgin River, Morning. Zion National Park, Utah. April 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The virgin River curves towards the Watchman in early morning light, Zion National Park, Utah.

The peak in the upper portion of this photograph, The Watchman, with the curve of the Virgin River in the foreground is, as I understand it, one of the iconic photographic subjects of Zion National Park – perhaps being roughly equivalent to a photograph of Yosemite’s Half Dome from the Sentinel Bridge in The Valley. The funny thing, though, is that while I had seen this view of this subject many times in the photographs of others, I actually had no idea where it was or that I would see it when I visited Zion National Park earlier this month. I had somewhat intentionally avoided doing any real research about the places I would photograph, preferring instead to just confront them for what they are, unaffected as much as possible by previous notions about what I “should” photograph.

So, as we rode the shuttle bus into the park from the town of Springdale in the afternoon and crossed a bridge over the Virgin River before heading up into the canyon, I looked to my right and thought, “Oh, it is that view!” I have heard the stories and have seen the pictures of hordes of photographers lined up on this bridge, specifically to shoot this scene with fall colors and at sunset. (You can see a couple of examples by photographer and friend Gary Crabbe here.) I generally don’t seek out the icons, though I most certainly will photograph them if a) I haven’t photographed them before and/or b) there is something unusual or different about the conditions when I’m there. Although I did not stop and get off the bus to photograph the scene on that first evening, in the back of my mind I considered stopping if it looked interesting the next morning. And, in fact, as we took the shuttle back into the park very early the next morning – starting before sunrise, actually – it seemed like it might be worth hopping off after the bridge and taking a look. I was more encourage when we got there, both by the interesting soft dawn light and the lack of any other photographers on the bridge. So, there you go – I now have a photograph of the Watchman and the Virgin River, too! :-)

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

Spring Cottonwood and Sandstone Cliff

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Spring Cottonwood and Sandstone Cliff - A cottonwood tree with early spring leaves stands in front of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park, Utah
A cottonwood tree with early spring leaves stands in front of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park, Utah

Spring Cottonwood and Sandstone Cliff. Zion National Park, Utah. April 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A cottonwood tree with early spring leaves stands in front of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park, Utah.

This was my first visit to Zion National Park – believe it or not – and I had been thinking about photographing cottonwood trees against red sandstone cliffs well before we arrived. We got there in the afternoon, checked in to our lodgings, and soon went up into the main canyon on the shuttle and then hiked up toward the Narrows from there.

It was a special and unusual experience for me to be photographing in an entirely new place, and to have very little idea of the geography of the Zion at all – I had almost intentionally avoided researching ahead of time, preferring to take it for what it was when I arrived. I was so naive that when we passed over a bridge and I looked downstream I thought, “Oh, that is the Watchman.” (For those who don’t know, the photograph of the Watchman Tower above the Virgin River, photographed from the bridge that crosses the river just inside the park is, roughly speaking, the Zion equivalent of photographing Half Dome from Sentinel Bridge in Yosemite.) We kept going, staring up at the beautiful sandstone towers and walls as the shuttle travelled up the canyon to the very end at the Temple of Sinawava, where we got off and started to walk. The walls in this very area are beautiful, and my progress up the trail was very slow as I stopped to gawk and photograph all of these wonderful new subjects, including this almost bare tree with its first spring growth. against the backdrop of the sandstone cliffs.

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

Detail, Face of The Watchman, Sunset

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Detail, Face of The Watchman, Sunset - The last sunset light on a portion of the face of The Watchman, Zion National Park, Utah.
The last sunset light on a portion of the face of The Watchman, Zion National Park, Utah.

Detail, Face of The Watchman, Sunset. Zion National Park, Utah. April 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The last sunset light on a portion of the face of The Watchman, Zion National Park, Utah.

As this evening approached, I had a plan to be somewhere close to the Zion National Park visitor center above Springdale, where I had seen the nearly full moon rising behind the ridge near The Watchman before sunset the night before. With that timing of the moon in mind, I estimated that on this night, the moon might rise in roughly the same spot but just a bit later. In many ways, the prime time for doing photographs of the full moon is during the golden hour, when there is sufficient ambient light to permit the correct exposure for the moon. But there is no moon in this photograph – so you might wonder what the point is!

I did show up here to photograph the moon, and I did get some photographs of the moon rising over the ridge. But after making a few moon photographs, I began to scan my surroundings a bit more closely, and I saw that the line between the sunset glow and the deeper post-sunset shadows was slowly working its way up the face of the Watchman. So as light/shadow demarcation slowly moved up the face of the cliff below the summit of the Walkman Watchman (!), I turned my camera that direction and made a few exposures of the rugged rocky face as it was lit by the last light of the setting sun.

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: Utah

Green River Canyon, Evening

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Green River Canyon, Evening - Soft evening light on the canyon of the Green River as it winds through the desert terrain of Canyonlands National Park, Utah
Soft evening light on the canyon of the Green River as it winds through the desert terrain of Canyonlands National Park, Utah

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

Soft evening light on the canyon of the Green River as it winds through the desert terrain of Canyonlands National Park, Utah.

I recently returned from a week in Utah which, perhaps surprisingly, was completely new to me as a photographic subject. More about that in a moment, but first a bit of description of the photograph. This photo was made in Canyonlands National Park in the “Island in the Sky” area, looking west from a high viewpoint above the canyon containing the winding Green River, not far above its confluence with the Colorado River. The “Island” is a high and relatively flat plateau at around 6000+’ of elevation, surrounding on many sides by deep canyons, cliffs, and then several levels of lower plateaus. There are “edges” everywhere, and all of them provide stunning vistas into the vast spaces below and beyond. We ended up at this spot largely due to a photograph I had seen an a park brochure that included a view of receding mesas and canyons in evening light. We scouted it in the middle of the afternoon as we visited several places in this area of the park, and it seemed inevitable that I would end up shooting here at sunset. I was initially imagining a scene with brighter colors from the sunset and the post-sunset sky, but instead I ended up with something that I think I like even more, namely softer light with some haze in the atmosphere and somewhat gentler colors.

As I mentioned above, I have not photographed in Utah before. I had been through the state several times many years ago, but I think we more or less sped through on interstate highways – which don’t tend to follow the most scenic routes – and I had a very limited view of the place. While it is too bad that I waited so long to go there, it gave me the opportunity to have an experience that I don’t have nearly as often in California where I do most of my shooting. Because I live within a short drive of redwood forests, the Pacific coast, and places like Yosemite Valley and the Sierra and visit all of them frequently, I have to admit that I sometimes forget how extraordinary they are. I can drive right past Yosemite’s Tunnel View if the view is just a typical Yosemite Valley view. But on this trip, I more or less intentionally avoided finding out a lot about some of our destinations before we left. Consequently, I had opportunities to be surprised and astonished – like any good tourist! – by things that I was seeing for the first time. For example, I really had no idea what I would see at Arches National Park when we drove into it at just about the “golden hour” – and I was completely stunned by impossible structures and juxtapositions of sandstone columns and arches and towers and cliffs. I just got a quick taste on this trip… but I’ll be back.

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.