Tag Archives: cottonwood

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Dunes, Sandstorm, Distant Mountains

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Dunes, Sandstorm, Distant Mountains
Distant mountains are barely visible beyond sandstorm clouds and desert dunes.

Dunes, Sandstorm, Distant Mountains. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Distant mountains are barely visible beyond sandstorm clouds and desert dunes.

This was not the most intense sandstorm I have experienced and photographed — I have some interesting stories about those! — but it was a pretty good one. Driving down the east side of Death Valley near the turnoff to Beatty, the winds were whipping up dust and sand to the west over the valley, blotting out the view of the great flats beyond the dunes and almost obscuring the more distant Cottonwood mountains.

I employed some of my typical strategies for photography in sandstorm conditions. While I will, on occasion, venture into the thick of the storm, dealing with the winds and blowing dust while trying to make photographs is something that you mostly want to avoid. (Going against that imperative can sometimes produce good photography, but it can also destroy equipment. Be careful!) Here I worked from the fringe of the strong winds and blowing sand, photographing into and across the maelstrom with a very long lens.

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.

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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Winter Sun, Fog, Trees

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Winter Sun, Fog, Trees
Morning sun glows weakly through tule fog to silhouette a grove of winter cottonwood trees.

Winter Sun, Fog, Trees. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning sun glows weakly through tule fog to silhouette a grove of winter cottonwood trees.

This New Year’s Day my photography was supposed to focus on migratory birds, but somehow I ended up with a bunch of landscape photographs! This is a bit ironic, since I go to these places to photograph birds — but perhaps it isn’t too surprising given that it is hard to photograph birds when the fog is so thick that it obscures things more than 100 feet away.

Before I made this photograph I had tried to photograph cranes. I could hear them nearby, but I could not see a single one through the fog aside from a few that occasionally flew directly overhead. I finally decided to look elsewhere, and before long I passed these familiar trees. In the fog they took on a new and mysterious aspect, so I stopped and set myself up in landscape photographer mode — off came the really long lens and out came the tripod. As I worked the fog changed from moment to moment, and at the instant of this exposure the sun was barely visible through the fog.

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.

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Winter Trees, Fog

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Winter Trees, Fog
Tule fog surrounds a stand of. barren winter trees, Central Valley.

Winter Trees, Fog. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tule fog surrounds a stand of. barren winter trees, Central Valley.

Something tells me that California Central Valley residents might disagree with me when I say that the winter tule fogs are among the biggest attractions of the region. I understand that days (or weeks!) of the gray can be depressing, and I’ve heard the stories about traffic accidents in zero-visibility fog. It is wet. It s cold. You can’t see through it. It interferes with travel.

But I love the mystery that the tule fog brings to this area. On clear summer days this is a broad, flat landscape that is largely agricultural. That has the potential to give it a bucolic quality, but the nature of modern Central Valley agriculture is that it also borders on an industrial process. But when the fog rises the world shrinks down to a radius that might be measured in yards rather than miles, more distant distractions disappear, details are muted, and the shallow but thick layer of fog glows luminously on a winter morning.

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.

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

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

Canyon Cottonwoods, Autumn

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Canyon Cottonwoods, Autumn
The sandstone walls of a Utah canyon tower above autumn cottonwood trees.

Canyon Cottonwoods, Autumn. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The sandstone walls of a Utah canyon tower above autumn cottonwood trees.

Back on this autumn day in 2012 three of us entered this lovely canyon and gradually worked our way down a few miles of its length, following its sinuous path around bends as it dug deeper into the red rock landscape of Southern Utah. I had spent close a month in Utah that season, and this was during the final few days of this period — and this “Sierra Guy” was starting to get a feel for this beautiful landscape.

These trees, in peak autumn color, stood at a bend in the canyon. This river canyon follows a classic meandering pattern, with short straight sections alternating with bends carved deeply into the sandstone terrain. In general the straight sections tend to be a bit more open while the bends tend to be places of deeper shade. This spot was definitely in the latter category, and the reflected soft light saturated the warm tones of the autumn colors.

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 and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

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