Tag Archives: death valley

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Imaginary Landscapes, Photographs: Nature

Evening Dunes

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Evening Dunes
Abstract interpretation of sand dunes in evening light.

Evening Dunes. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Abstract interpretation of sand dunes in evening light.

For this photograph I decided to move further from supposed reality than usual. In my view, no photograph actually portrays “objective reality” accurately. That’s a good thing, and I prefer subjective reality in photographs. In other words, I’m interested not so much in what the photograph claims to tell us about the reality of the subject as I am interested in what the photographer wants us to find in the subject.

I was in sand dunes in the evening after the sun had dropped beyond mountains far to the west, leaving very colorful light in the clouds, light that suffused the landscape with color while softening the details. Here I was interested in the large patterns of light and dark and the smaller patterns made by wind on the surface of the dunes. The final interpretation of the colors reflects the bluish tones of evening light and the effect of the brightly colored sky, though here I modified the colors in ways that seemed to make some sense for this image.

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

Beneath Desert Mountains, Morning

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Beneath Desert Mountains, Morning
Desert mountains and morning light spreading across an alluvial fan.

Beneath Desert Mountains, Morning. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Desert mountains and morning light spreading across an alluvial fan.

This is more or less where I had hoped to be in January, even up until a couple of months ago. At that time, careful travel into lonely places was still a reasonable option, especially since I stop only for gas and would have camped well off the beaten track, barely interacting with anyone at all. But wanting to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, I’m following the guidelines to not travel more than 120 miles from my home, and I’m also not going to play games and try to sneak into the Death Valley backcountry… regardless of how appealing that sounds and of how badly I miss the place right now.

This photograph is one of those that illustrates the advice to look all around while making photographs. Sometimes the thing you came to see isn’t the only thing to attend to. I had come to this spot before dawn to photograph a subject that lies directly behind the camera position of this scene, and had worked on it as the scene transitioned from soft, pre-sunrise light through a somewhat colorful sunrise to light that was becoming more harsh than I desired. So I turned around. Here the backlit atmosphere glowed in the light streaming over the rugged desert hills to the east.

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

Dunes and Mountains, Rising Dust

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Dunes and Mountains, Rising Dust
A desert sandstorm raises towers of dust against a background of rugged mountains obscured by haze.

Dunes and Mountains, Rising Dust. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A desert sandstorm raises towers of dust against a background of rugged mountains obscured by haze.

Continuing here with the 2013 series of Death Valley National Park photographs and, at the moment, a series of photographs made in and around the edges of a big dust storm that swept down the valley late in the day. I made this photograph from a good distance away from the dunes, using a long focal length to bring them a bit closer and to make the more distant mountains fill the background. When the dust is bad, I often work from out along the margins of the worst of it, and here the allowed me to photograph almost straight into the afternoon sun and capture the diffuse and glowing dust-filled atmosphere.

The photograph demonstrates the compositional value of haze and obscured atmosphere in several ways. The generally hazy air glows from the backlight, and it obscures all but the largest forms of the distant mountains — just the barely visible outlines of ridges. Without this haze, the dunes would be overpowered by the structure of those mountains, and the rising towers of dust would be lost against a more complex background.

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.

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.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Nature

Desert Mountains, Blowing Dust

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Desert Mountains, Blowing Dust
Immense desert mountains partially obscured by blowing dust.

Desert Mountains, Blowing Dust. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Immense desert mountains partially obscured by blowing dust.

For some reason, this week I seem to be reviewing photographs from Death Valley and many of them want to be monochrome. This is the second in two days. Recently I’ve been thinking about the subject of rugged, desert ridges receding into distant haze, and when I came across this old raw file it seemed to fit right into that theme.

My recollection (not completely certain, since the photo was made nearly eight years ago) is that we were headed up Death Valley towards a dust storm rising in the flats and dunes north of Stovepipe Well. That’s not an uncommon occurrence at this time of year. The atmosphere was filled with that diffuse haze that often develops around dust storm, and as we approached the source of the blowing sand we began to see clouds of dust rising above the landscape in the center of the valley.

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.

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.