Tag Archives: cottonwood

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

Escalante River, Early Fall

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Escalante River, Early Fall - Early fall colors begin to come to the trees lining the Escalante River, Utah.
Early fall colors begin to come to the trees lining the Escalante River, Utah.

Escalante River, Early Fall. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. October 6, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early fall colors begin to come to the trees lining the Escalante River, Utah.

If I have any regrets about this photograph, it might be that if I had been there a few days later the entire cottonwood-covered river bottom might have been the color of the leaves on the one brilliant foreground tree. But seriously, it was a stunningly beautiful scene. The trees here ranged from regular old green to quite brilliant yellow and gold, and the partly cloudy skies sent alternating cloud shadows and sunny breaks hurrying across the landscape. As I set up on this hill above the river valley, I would look back over my shoulder to spot the next break in the clouds, try to predict where and when it would cast its light, and then make several exposures as the light traversed the scene from near to far, first illuminating the foreground trees, then the red cliff faces, and finally the towers at the far end of the valley.

The terrain in this area is truly stunning. After dropping down a steep descent and traversing rolling waves of sandstone, the road makes a brief descent to the river bottom. It then begins to rise and is soon traveling along a length “hogback” with sheer drop-offs on both sides, and the river valley far below.

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 Cottonwoods, Zion Canyon

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Spring Cottonwoods, Zion Canyon - New spring leaves appear on cottonwood trees along the Virgin River in Zion Canyon, Zion National Park.
New spring leaves appear on cottonwood trees along the Virgin River in Zion Canyon, Zion National Park.

Spring Cottonwoods, Zion Canyon. Zion National Park, Utah. April 3, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

New spring leaves appear on cottonwood trees along the Virgin River in Zion Canyon, Zion National Park.

I encountered this scene a short distance up the trail from the Temple of Sinawava area in Zion National Park, in the area below the start of “the Narrows.” Here the canyon of the Virgin River becomes quite narrow, eventually narrowing so much that the river often spans its entire width. These young trees, which were just beginning to show their spring leaves, are in along a slightly wider section where the river curves, and just be flooded during times of high water. Beyond, the river and the canyon twist right, left, and then back to the right again between the steep sandstone walls.

I’m always intrigued by trying to photograph these scenes of very dense foliage in which the frame ends up filled with a huge amount of detail. It is a challenge to try to create anything like an effective composition out of this complexity, and I think it is even more difficult to make such photographs “work” in the small presentation necessary for sharing on the web.

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 Cottonwoods, Zion Canyon

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Spring Cottonwoods, Zion Canyon - New spring leaves appear on cottonwood trees along the Virgin River in Zion Canyon, Zion National Park.
New spring leaves appear on cottonwood trees along the Virgin River in Zion Canyon, Zion National Park.

Spring Cottonwoods, Zion Canyon. Zion National Park, Utah. April 3, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

New spring leaves appear on cottonwood trees along the Virgin River in Zion Canyon, Zion National Park.

This is a type of photograph that I enjoy searching out – though it is also a type that can be difficult to present effectively in online jpg form, given the amount of fine detail that is present. The challenge is in trying to capture both the dense complexity of the thick foliage and the complex patterns of rock – and these things fill the frame completely – and still try to find some sort of compositional logic that might still be visible in the end. In general, I think these things work better in fairly large prints.

The scene is along a section of the Virgin River in Zion Canyon of Zion National Park. A trail continues up the canyon beyond the point that is accessible via the park service shuttles. Here the canyon gradually narrows, and thickets of young cottonwood trees grow on the valley floor in what I believe must be the sediment left behind by floods. The canyon itself becomes a bit more convoluted, twisting right and left around the vertical sandstone walls. For much of the day there is little or no direct sunlight at the bottom of the canyon, and that was certainly the case during the time when I made this photograph.

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.

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

Zion Canyon, Virgin River, Spring

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Zion Canyon, Virgin River, Spring - The Virgin River flows through Zion Canyon near Weeping Rock, Zion Canyon National Park, Utah.
The Virgin River flows through Zion Canyon near Weeping Rock, Zion Canyon National Park, Utah.

Zion Canyon, Virgin River, Spring. Zion National Park, Utah. April 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The Virgin River flows through Zion Canyon near Weeping Rock, Zion Canyon National Park, Utah.

On this morning we were back in Zion Canyon, following the Virgin River up the Valley to various locations. While it was still quite early we had walked up to the base of Weeping Rock, deep in the shaded area in the center of this photograph, and photographed there in the quiet shade. Then we moved a short distance up this part of the canyon where it makes a rather sharp series of turns and stopped an a place where there were visits up, down, and across the Virgin River and along the huge sandstone cliffs in all directions.

Looking around, I saw that there were some scattered clouds that were moving across the sky and alternative shading and lighting various portions of the landscape, and creating some dramatic effects, especially when the light came from behind the group of cottonwood trees along the banks of the river below me. The skeletal forms of the trees’ trunks were still clearly visible and, when the light was bright enough, they cast mirror-image shadows on the new grass below. The tops of the trees were fringed by new leaves, and these glowed brightly in the backlight coming from above the far cliffs above Weeping Rock. There was just enough haze in the air, amplified a bit by backlighting, to suggest the distance and massive size of the dark 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.
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.