Cottonwood, Red Rock Canyon. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. October 24, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A fall color-tinged cottonwood tree grows in the depths of a red rock canyon, Utah

It is time to begin the Utah posts — I already have perhaps a month of photographs to share. (I still have more photographs from my late-summer back-country Yosemite shoot in the queue, but they can wait for a bit.) Utah, especially the southwest portion that I have visited frequently during the past few years, is an intriguing place for this California photographer. After decades of happily photographing my increasingly familiar home territory, it has been a special experience to work in a place where almost everything is new to me. I’ve gone there will few specific expectations, and I’ve made a point of not seeking out the familiar icons — though I have stumbled onto a few of them. (Yes, I do have a photograph of the Watchman. ;-) Compared to the gray tones of California granite, the red rock country of the Southwest is absolutely wild. Combine that rock with intense colors of green plants, yellow/gold fall foliage, blue sky and the effect is very different from what I’m used to shooting.

On my recent visit I managed to get into a number of canyons and gulches, which are perhaps the most magical of Utah places. In many cases, including the canyon where I made this photograph, the visit often begins in a place that looks nothing like this canyon scene — some dry, shallow wash or perhaps out on the flatlands above the canyon, where the air is dry and warm. I follow a path downstream and soon the wash becomes deeper and the walls rockier, and before long these walls rise to become cliffs and the world outside and above disappears, replaced by cool and moist air and water in the bottom of the echoing canyon. Trees and brush grow here, and sometimes you are caught up short when you encounter the sacred traces of people who made this world their home centuries ago. This photograph was made in such a canyon. At a stream crossing I made an almost random decision to climb up onto a higher route around a bend in the stream rather than following the the stream along the bottom of the canyon. As I crossed the slightly higher area I looked down into this world of red rock where a solitary cottonwood tree grows against the curving patterns of the rock.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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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