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Commentary, Conservation/Environment, Ideas, Locations, News, Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Southern California, Thinking Aloud

Death Valley on My Mind

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Wash and Alluvial Fan
Morning light on a giant alluvial fan at the base of a desert mountain wash.

Wash and Alluvial Fan. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Morning light on a gigantic alluvial fan at the base of desert mountains, Death Valley National Park.

This morning I am waking up in a place that is almost literally on the other side of the world from my “home country” of California. As I look out the window from a home in Kosovo toward high mountains at the start the day I am thinking about the storm impacting my state today, and the deserts regions such as Death Valley are especially on my mind as I read reports of tropical storm Hilary.

Our natural impression of places like Death Valley National Park (the part of California’s desert terrain that I know best) is of dryness, heat, aridity… of places where little grows and where challenges human visitors. It isn’t quite that simple, but there is truth to this. Our biggest concerns in such places are often the heat and the scarcity of water.

But I have long been impressed by the fact that there are few locations where the impact of water is more clearly visible than in the desert, especially in the rugged terrain of places like Death Valley. The valley was once a lake. Remnant water from that lake still appears and flows there. The tremendous mountains on either side of the valley were eroded and formed by water, and monumental alluvial fans flow out of side canyons everywhere. Deep watercourses cut through rock, and a close look at stones reveals that they were moved by water.

Even when we recognize the landscape-forming power of water, we still think of the landscape as now being static — formed by forces that worked in the past but now have left a stable geography. A few rocks fall, occasionally a wash overflows and takes out a small section of a road, a playa may fill temporarily with water… but soon everything is back to “normal” as it was.

But this morning it sounds like we may experience much more profound changes as Hilary sweeps though, the sort that occur at intervals measured centuries. Those of us who love this landscape may find our access cut off and that much changes after this storm. I’m both excited by and fearful of these effects — but in any case this is a powerful reminder of the scale of the forces at work in these places we love.

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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Across the Canyon

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Across the Canyon
Morning light on a desert canyon and eroded hills, Death Valley National Park.

Across the Canyon. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Morning light on a desert canyon and eroded hills, Death Valley National Park.

Weeks ago I thought I was “done” with the photographs from my January visit to Death Valley National Park. As usual, I was wrong. I almost always end up returning later to files that I think I’ve picked over, and I inevitably find something that I missed. (I have a theory about this that has to do with how we see photographs right after we make them versus how we view them later on with some aesthetic distance.) I made this photograph on a morning when thick haze to the east softened the light.

The impetus for this return to the file archive was a posted by a friend who was photographing in the park just before the first day of spring. I recognized her camera position as being very close to a place that I had used in January, and when I went back to my files to verify my hunch I ended up plowing through the archive again. The fact that this photograph sees the light of day now is the result of multiple bits of serendipity. I was there to photograph an entirely different subject, and I only spotted this scene by turning away from that subject. I might never have “found” it again if it hadn’t been for the coincidence of seeing my friend’s photograph.

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

Interrupted Dune #2

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Interrupted Dune #2
Interrupted curve of sand at a Death Valley dune.

Interrupted Dune #2. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Interrupted curve of sand at a Death Valley dune.

If you follow my posts and think that this looks familiar… you are right! It is a vertical (or “portrait”) format version of a subject that I shared earlier in a companion “landscape” orientation version. When a subject can work either way (albeit with different effects) it is my practice to capture both vertical and horizontal versions. I suppose one reason is that it relieves me of the worry that I might have picked the “wrong” option. It also puts off a final choice until later. In addition, it provides me with two visual options for the image, something that is occasionally useful. (For example, book and magazine covers tend to use vertical formats.)

Superficially this version looks a lot like the other one, though the taller and narrower format may give greater weight to the curve running between the bottom and top of the image and less weight to the darker portions of the scene. However, if you were to look at them side-by-side you would notice that the textures in the sand are subtly different, and that that colors have also shifted a bit. This photograph, like quite a few that I make in situations like this, was made in rapidly changing light conditions, and in the brief interval between the two photographs the scene changed visibly.

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

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

Winter Desert Evening

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Winter Desert Evening
Evening quiet comes to a wide desert valley in the northern reaches of Death Valley National Park.

Winter Desert Evening. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening quiet comes to a wide desert valley in the northern reaches of Death Valley National Park.

Mostly this scene brings back a memory of utter silence and solitude at the end of a day that had been quite full. I had started far away in a very different part of Death Valley National park, photographing in locations where there were quite a few other people. In the late morning I broke camp and headed north, eventually driving many miles on a long gravel road, over some hills, and out on another road across flats to arrive at this place. There were a few people there when I arrived, but they soon departed.

So I had this entire immense valley to myself for the evening, the night, and the following early morning. I wandered slowly, making photographs along the edge of dunes, until the sun set. I continued photographing as the light became soft and everything became utterly still.

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.