Tag Archives: cottonwood

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

Streamside Cottonwood Trees

Image Leave a comment
Streamsiode Cottonwood Trees
Streamside cottonwood trees along the Virgin River begin to change to autumn colors.

Streamside Cottonwood Trees. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Streamside cottonwood trees along the Virgin River begin to change to autumn colors.

This photograph comes from a very busy place in Zion National Park, along the trail to one of the more popular destinations in Zion Canyon. Fortunately, as is almost always the case in well-known national parks, you can usually step even a little ways off the main trails and put some distance between yourself and the hordes. That’s more or less what I did here — I just walked a little ways away from the main hiking thoroughfare to where the trees were overhanging the river a bit. (However, a warning: When there are so many people around, sometimes a critical mass of them may see you making photographs and decide to follow. Unfortunately, that happened here to some extent. On some occasions I’ve been known to go to some lengths to obscure my visits to such places!)

Once again, I was really mostly attracted by the reflected canyon light — that special light that reflects from sunlit red rock walls and then gently fills in shadows with softly-directional, warm light. (One challenge: if there is a breeze it can be hard to deal with the motion of the leaves in this low light.) I chose the portrait orientation for this photograph so that I could include a bit of the stream and the boulder along with a bit of the canyon wall above and beyond the trees.

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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

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

Cottonwoods and Red Rock Canyon

Image 4 Comments
Cottonwoods and Red Rock Canyon
An old cottonwood and a grove of smaller trees in front of the sandstone walls of Zion Canyon.

Cottonwoods and Red Rock Canyon. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An old cottonwood and a grove of smaller trees in front of the sandstone walls of Zion Canyon.

There are at least two stories behind this photograph — maybe more. The first one involves a situation familiar to many photographers. When we go into these places carrying a backpack of gear, with a big camera on a tripod hanging over our shoulder, we aren’t exactly in stealth mode. And because lots of people in such places are trying to figure out how to make photographs to record their wonder… sometimes our presence draws them in our direction. I had wandered over to the bank of the Virgin River to photograph something and, sure enough, lots of other folks started showing up in what had been a pretty empty spot. I finished photographing there and headed back toward where I came from, looked back, and saw this big old tree towering above and decided it was worth a photograph. But now there were a few dozen people among those trees!

I made a mental note to remember the tree and come back to it later on as I continued up the canyon. When I did return the crowd had departed and I was able to get the scene I wanted. I’m generally not big on shooting with wide angle lenses, often preferring to limit the composition by using longer lenses and their narrower angle-of-view. But in the confines of a red rock canyon, a large tree like this cottonwood often towers above you, even if you have some space to move back. These big, old cottonwood trees fascinate me, and their varieties of form and setting seem almost infinite.

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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

Cottonwood Trees and Red Rock Cliffs

Image Leave a comment
Cottonwood Trees and Red Rock Cliffs
A small grove of tall cottonwood trees beneath a red rock cliff, Zion National Park.

Cottonwood Trees and Red Rock Cliffs. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A small grove of tall cottonwood trees beneath a red rock cliff, Zion National Park.

Because Zion National Park is so popular, especially the main Zion Canyon along the Virgin River, the Park Service has instituted a shuttle system to carry visitors in and out and from place to place within the canyon. Like all such systems, it has it flaws — hard to get a seat going into the park early in the morning or late in the day leaving, hard to schlep camera equipment in and out — but on balance I think it is a good thing. I’ve been in Zion when the place was crawling with cars — cars on the roads, cars parked everywhere, cars waiting for parking spaces. The bus system improves on that, and I think the inconvenience is worth it for the most part.

We took a very early shuttle all the way up to the entrance to the narrows, the last stop on the route. My photographer instincts said, “Get there early!” These instincts are good, and there is a lot of interesting work to be done in the soft morning light. But photographing in these canyons isn’t the same as photographing, for example, in the open spaces of the Sierra or the desert. In red rock canyon country, the best light often comes later in the morning and well before sunset, when the sun is high enough to directly strike the red canyon walls and reflect that soft, warm light down into the lower reaches of the canyons. With this in mind, we took our time after photographing below the narrows, and rather than getting back on a shuttle we started walking down canyon, enjoying the variety of reflected light… and we repeated the process once again later in the day. I first saw this group of trees very early in the morning, and I made a point of coming back to them later in the day when I knew the reflected light would appear.

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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Four Trees, Owens Valley And The Sierra

Image Leave a comment
Four Trees, Owens Valley And The Sierra
Four Owens Valley trees in evening light, against the shadowed backdrop of the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada.

Four Trees, Owens Valley And The Sierra. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Four Owens Valley trees in evening light, against the shadowed backdrop of the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada.

Our recent travels ultimately took us to Utah, but we began with an obligatory visit to the Eastern Sierra Nevada. It doesn’t really seem like autumn until I have renewed my acquaintance with the autumnal transformation of the aspen trees. I had been up there a week earlier, so this was a shorter visit, but it gave us enough time to do a bit of exploring, visiting some spots that we don’t typically visit.

On our final evening before continuing to the east we decided to do a bit of wandering in Owen’s Valley, and our random ride eventually brought us to this spot just as the last sunlight was coming over the Sierra crest and angling across the Valley. We had headed out this direction for an almost entirely unrelated reason, but once there this row of four trees distracted us, and we quickly worked the light before it was gone. (This was one of those landscape-photography-as-action-photography moments — that shadow line was approaching quickly as I made my exposures, and before long the trees were no longer in the sun.) From this vantage point the immensity and abruptness of the eastern escarpment of the Sierra is clear — the wall of peaks, here embellished with a trace of autumn snow, towers above Owens Valley.

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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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