Tag Archives: cliffs

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

Canyon Walls, Plant

June 16, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A lone plant grows from sandstone walls deep within a Utah slot canyon

I had the opportunity to spend a significant period of time photographing in Utah back in October of 2014. Although I got a late start with Utah (only photographing there for the first time a few years ago) I have been doing my best to make up for lost time. I’ve spent between a month and a month and a half there in total over the past couple of years. During that time I have come to love autumn in the canyons. Oh, heck, I think I love autumn just about anywhere in Utah!

I walked into this canyon early on last fall’s trip. I had arrived at my first Utah stopover place the night before, looked at a map, and figured I might find something interesting in this general area. (I’m not always a careful advanced planner, preferring to wing it depending on the light and my mood.) The walk began in terrain that was more of a wash than a canyon, but before long the sandstone walls closed in and narrowed and I was walking through slots. The light in such places can be magical at the right moments, usually when the sun rises high enough in the sky to project into the upper reaches of the canyon, where it bounces and diffuses as it fills the canyon below with saturated light.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Canyon and Stream

April 3, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A small rock-filled stream wanders along the bottom of a deep Utah red rock canyon

Yet another bend in yet another Utah canyon! We had hiked a good distance down into the depths of this canyon, finally stopping (most of us, anyway) at a scenic bend with lots of interesting photographic subjects. We held up there to make photographs, to sit and talk, and to eat. A few of us went a bit farther and some went a good distance more, but soon we had all checked our watches and realized it was time to start back..

This spot is just below a narrow section of the canyon where the water flows through a narrow cleft and around a big curve. Here, below that section, it seems like the flow must slow a bit, since a few more trees manage to grow here and the bed of the creek held a lot of river rocks and silt. In the distance the canyon curves more toward the west, and this allows a bit more light down into the canyon, producing a bit of a glow ahead.

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

Afternoon Light, Forest and Cliff

February 16, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Yosemite Valley forest and cliffs in hazy late afternoon light

This past weekend I had time to visit Yosemite Valley for a couple of hours. That doesn’t sound like much time, but it is enough to see a few things and make a few photographs. (We would have had more time, but we were distracted by migratory birds as we crossed the Central Valley, and by the time we arrived in the park it was mid afternoon.) Coming into the Valley we spotted the first evidence of the annual migration of the Horsetail Fall photographers, lined up in a spot along the Merced River a few hours before sunset. (We saw more of them on the way out of the Valley later in the evening.)

For me, photography in the Valley is often about the light, with the quality of the atmosphere being close to the light in importance. Given that there were no clouds I was not too optimistic about the prospects, but when we arrived at a meadow late in the afternoon I saw some beautiful haze that was starting to be backlit by the lowering sun. I found some trees — the group in this photograph and others in a pair of photographs I’ll share later — and I looked for a composition that eliminated the bright sky, that put the sun close to directly behind the trees, and which put some of the valley walls and towers in the frame in order to provide some form and textural relief to the haze. Then it was a matter of lining up the elements of the photograph so that the tallest trees were within the outline of a large tower. Shooting almost straight into the sun (and engaging in interesting gymnastics in order to shield the front element of my lens from flare-producing direct light), I made a few exposures.

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

Canyon Light

November 25, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Warm reflected light filters into the depths of a Utah slot canyon

I’m somewhat new to the world of Utah slot canyons, but I’m also increasingly enthusiastic about them and their photographic potential. I have not visited some of the iconic “big name” slots (and I may or may not do so), but I have found similar experiences in other locations. During my recent Utah visit I had thought about exploring a particular area in southwest Utah. I had a few place names in mind, but I really did not know much about them in any detail. (I often prefer to not know too much about these places, preferring instead to discover them on my own.) This canyon has a name that I had heard before, so one morning I decided to head out that direction and see what I could discover.

I drove down a gravel road, parked, loaded up camera equipment and a snack, and headed down a broad wash into the upper part of the valley though would eventually narrow and become a slot canyon. While it is no doubt more efficient to begin closer to such canyons, I enjoy the process of moving from the wider valleys to the narrower canyons, and the walk down the meandering path of the stream above the narrow canyon was enjoyable. Inside the narrow section the walls rose vertically, the canyon floor was often quite wet, and beautiful soft light filtered down from above, reflecting the warm reddish colors of the rocks and highlighting their shapes and patterns.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: cliffs

Canyon Walls, Plant

Canyon and Stream

Afternoon Light, Forest and Cliff

Canyon Light

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