Tag Archives: cottonwood

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

Autumn Cottonwood Tree, Sculpted Rock

November 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A cottonwood tree with autumn foliage growing in sculpted sandstone terrain

The subject of this photograph is a sort of invisible icon. Let me explain. The location is not a very popular one by the usual standards. It isn’t easy to get to many places in this sprawling national monument. Things are not signed. There are no “photo spot” signs. The great majority of roads are unpaved and some are quite rough. You won’t find campgrounds with running water and flush toilets. Stores are few and far between. (While part of me is certain that its attractions deserve national park status, and frustrated that certain local politics will likely prevent this in the foreseeable future… another part of me thinks that the relative obscurity of national monument status may also have some benefits.)

Yet, there are places that seem to draw folks who love this land and are willing to search things out a bit. This particular sort of landscape of swooping, curving sandstone shapes, deep water pockets, and the occasional cottonwood tree is not that hard to find, and if you look around a bit you can find many, many examples. On this evening we photographed in soft light created by high clouds, and I decided to find a different angle on this lone cottonwood — one that would include it in a receding sequence of layers of sandstone formations.

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

Cottonwood, Red Rock Canyon

November 4, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

East Carson River, Autumn

October 23, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Fall colors along the canyon of the East Carson River, California

Aspens are most certainly not the only sources of autumn color in the Sierra Nevada. There are many bush-like plants that can be quite colorful, such as the willows that may line high elevation creeks, and in the lower places along rivers cottonwood trees produce beautiful color just a bit later than the aspens.

This photograph was made along a section of the East Carson River not far from the tiny town of Markleeville in Alpine County, one of the least populated areas in the state. In this general area there is a transition from the higher country around the Sierra crest toward the high desert east of the range where rivers like this one end up. As I drove up the highway alongside the East Carson it was still early morning and shadows filled the bottom of the river canyon, where colors came from brush, cottonwoods, reflected blue sky and warmer colors reflected from higher canyon walls.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Desert Mountains, Rain

May 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Afternoon rain falls on peaks beyond a rising series of rugged desert mountain ridges, Death Valley National Park

This turned out to be a surprisingly and almost ridiculously productive day of photography, which was not at all what I expected as the day began nor at any number of times later in the day. Much of what happened was unplanned and the result of discovering things and of reacting intuitively to changing conditions. Prior to getting up before dawn to head to out first shooting location, my description of what I hoped would happen on this day or even of what I expected would happen would have had little in common with how it evolved. I have related some of the details of the earlier parts of the day already—sunrise light cut short by an incoming storm, the surprise discovery of abundant high desert mountain wildflowers, a snow storm, a first visit to an old historic site, and more—so I’ll just briefly mention the later part of the day. The winter storm, that brought some rain and snow to Death Valley National Park mountains, finally broke up, leaving a few showers high up in the mountains along with brilliant light coming through gaps in the thinning clouds, and these conditions lasted right on into the evening.

I made this photograph in the late afternoon. There was still plenty of rain or snow among the peaks, though the air was much clearer below and, indeed, some light was beginning to come through the clouds. Here I had a clear view across a portion of the valley, over the alluvial material at the base of the Cotton Mountains, and on up across the layered ridges toward the cloud-shrouded higher peaks. I had an idea for this as a photograph, but the light was difficulty and I knew that significant work in post would be required. Indeed, while this might seem like a simple natural landscape, the final version here is the result of significant work done after the fact in the digital darkroom.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: cottonwood

Autumn Cottonwood Tree, Sculpted Rock

Cottonwood, Red Rock Canyon

East Carson River, Autumn

Desert Mountains, Rain

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