Tag Archives: dawn

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

Autumn Morning, Fremont River Valley

November 6, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Autumn morning light and clouds above the valley of the Fremont River

Technically this location is actually just outside of Capitol Reef National Park, but its close enough. The plan on this morning was to make a journey down the east side of the park to a somewhat more remote area, so we started out rather early. After passing through the park and starting the drive to our eventual destination we quickly realized that a fairly unusual and spectacular sunrise was underway, so we found the first available location from which to take advantage of the situation.

This was most definitely not a blah blue sky morning! A variety of clouds filled a good portion of the sky in several directions, though light was able to pass through gaps in the clouds to the east. Above the peaks of Capitol Reef to the west the sky was generally darkened by high clouds that briefly took on rosy dawn colors before fading. To the north were lenticular clouds, some lined up in formations that reminded me of California’s “Sierra wave” clouds. When I saw these clouds and this light, the obvious question was what to put in a photograph that included them — so I quickly wandered over the a high point above the valley of the Fremont River from which I could photograph across the sunlit valley to include the spectacular clouds and darker peaks in the distance.

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

Desert Dawn, Storm Clouds

June 22, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 6 Comments

Layers of dawn clouds from an arriving storm above receding mountains and valleys, Death Valley

This photograph comes from just about two months ago, during a photography visit to Death Valley National Park. It has been a very strange weather year in California, and the strangeness continued on this trip. In early April, almost anything can happen with Death Valley weather… and much of that “anything” occurred while we were there. On this day, the main attractions was… snow!

The night before I had decided that it looked like there might be the potential for interesting light up high in the mountains to the west of the Valley. My hope was that the clouds of an incoming weather front my just be making their appearance over the mountains, but leaving the sky to the east mostly clear or perhaps with some interesting clouds around dawn. We were up well before first light and on the road. As it began to be light we could see that there were a lot of clouds coming in, and when we arrived at our intended shooting location the clouds were closing in quickly. I guessed that there might, just maybe, be a brief window of light as the sun rose above mountains on the far side of the valley and, for an instant, might shine light horizontally above the mountains and below the clouds. It didn’t quite happen. (And you can’t always count on the good light. You have to be out there in some light failures if you hope to be there enough to get the miraculous successes, too.) The best we got was a brief and fiery illumination of the undersides of these clouds, above darker lower clouds and the shadowed peaks of the Amargosa Range.

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

Desert Mountains, Stormy Sunrise

April 23, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sun rises through the clouds of a developing storm over the Amargosa Range, Death Valley National Park

We arrived very early at this high overlook in Death Valley National Park’s Panamint Range, hoping to photograph a desert mountain sunrise. When conditions are good at this location, there is an almost 360 degree panorama of rugged and desolate mountain terrain, punctuated by deep valleys, especially the chasm of Death Valley itself which lies immediately below. Because the spot is so high, even further views abound—far out into Nevada to the east, and back to the crest of the Southern Sierra to the west.

But little of that happened on this morning. We arrived before dawn and I could tell that a cloud deck was coming over the Panamint crest behind us and extending out to the east over Death Valley. There was a gap in the clouds to the east, but it was a narrow one, and more clouds were beginning to build over the ridges in that direction. On a perfect morning here, beams of sunrise light play over the tops of the peaks and shine into valleys near and far. But on this morning things were rapidly tending toward gray. However, for a few moments there was a bit of brilliant color just over those eastward ridges, where the clouds had not yet closed down on their summits, and by using a very long lens I was able to isolate this scene just as the sun came up, backlighting the virga falling from the clouds above the silhouetted forms of the ridges.

Commentary, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

Dawn, San Francisco Bay

April 6, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dawn light, fog, and high clouds over the northern shoreline of San Francisco Bay

This early morning late-winter view of San Francisco Bay looks back to the east from the Marin Headlands. The morning had started with somewhat murky conditions—high clouds above, atmospheric haze over the bay, and for along the San Francisco waterfront and across the bay toward Oakland. I was hoping for color, but the moment of sunrise was a bit disappointing in that regard. The probably was some color, but it was muted by the high clouds and haze and it happened mostly behind that fog bank floating above the East Bay.

But soon the high clouds began to pick up some color, and this pinkish glow reflected down towards the water, the fog, and the haze, gently coloring the scene. I thought that I might break up the many horizontal layers of light and color by including a it of the foreground land, and I experimented with several compositions: one that centered Angel Island in the scene, one that caught a bit of the edge of Angel Island and a bit of the Tiburon shoreline, and then this one which just included a bit of the north bay shoreline instead. Having watched so many sunrises, I still am struck by how this visual beauty arrives without a sound.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: dawn

Autumn Morning, Fremont River Valley

Desert Dawn, Storm Clouds

Desert Mountains, Stormy Sunrise

Dawn, San Francisco Bay

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