Tag Archives: death valley

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

Desert Hills, Morning

April 10, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light slants across desert hills, Death Valley National Park

If you know Death Valley well, you already know this — but to many of you it may come as a surprise to realize just how much of Death Valley’s character is the result of the actions of water. The main valley itself was once the floor of a huge lake, and quite a few formations were formed beneath its surface. Once you realize this you begin to see the evidence everywhere. And in the time since the lake’s waters receded, the effects of water have continued in other ways. Evidence of flowing water is everywhere, from the gullies inscribed into the hillsides, to the washes that are found almost everywhere, and including the gigantic alluvial fans forms as floods carried eroded material from the high mountains out onto the desert floor. This extraordinarily dry landscape is, oddly enough, one of the easiest places to see the effects of water.

I had originally planned to photograph in a salt flat area where a bit of water flows, but when I arrived and found that my intended distant subject was under dim, cloudy light I decided to go with plan b and move on to higher ground. I had scoped out this location on a previous evening and was intrigued by the overlapping patterns of darker hills rising above the alluvial fan and the way they recede into distant haze. In the morning I could tell from a distance that there was light up here, so I quickly headed this direction, arriving just as the first light touched some clouds overhead. As I continued to photograph the clouds moved, bringing alternating periods of hazy gloom and then beautiful light.

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

Desert Mountains, Last Light

August 8, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening light passes across the rugged face of desert mountains, Death Valley National Park

At the risk of repeating something I have already written several times, scenes like this one have a particular way of deceiving us. This is, in the strict sense of the work, a desert scene, photographed in a place that seems very little perception and where it can be oppressively hot and dry and where sandstorms often blow. From this distance there is little obvious evidence that anything living is within the scene.

However, it is also completely obvious that the scene is full of the evidence of the power of water. While the mountains themselves were not created by water — though if you look back far enough to their sedimentary roots perhaps they were! — they were most certainly shaped by water. The rugged ridges and gullies are clear evidence of the power of water, and even that gradual slope at the bottom of the mountains is an alluvial fan, created over long periods of time as water washed down material eroded from those mountains.

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

Desert Mountains, Evening Shadows

August 1, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Patterns of rock, evening light, and shadows in rugged desert mountain terrain

In places along the eastern edge of Death Valley, the color of soils and rocks varies tremendously. In the daytime light the colors are perhaps subtle — tans, reddish, gold, black, and more — but in the early and late (especially, on this side of the valley) light the colors intensify and become more saturated.

After I finished photographing more expansive views taking in the width and length of the portion of the Valley and including the base of the Panamint Mountains, I headed over along this other side of the valley where the final light falls. This scene holds some of the range of rock color, along with the rugged landscape of overlapping hills and gullies.

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

Strata and Folds, Evening

July 28, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Desert terrain of contorted and folded strata

It has been well over a year since I made this photograph, but I remember the evening well. I had arrived in Death Valley earlier in the day, by way of a detour through the Los Angeles area, found a place to camp, and was now starting several days of intensive photography in the area. In the evening I headed south in the park to a particular knoll that I have photographed from before, with the idea of photographing a particular subject in some light that I had in mind.

I found and photographed that subject, though conditions weren’t quite what I expected. A combination of evening haze and strong winds presented some challenges — and I’ll need to return to the spot to make that photograph that I originally envisioned. However, from this elevated position there was a spectacular view of arid and rugged desert terrain in the opposite direction, so as the light on my original subject faded I turned my attention in this direction. There are many things to think about and say about terrain like this, but I’ll mention one thing. When we look at such a place our first impression is of the rugged dryness. But when we look again we see evidence of water everywhere in such a landscape — in those valleys, and in the gullies tracing twisting lines down the faces of the formations.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: death valley

Desert Hills, Morning

Desert Mountains, Last Light

Desert Mountains, Evening Shadows

Strata and Folds, Evening

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