Tag Archives: desert

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Ghost Towns, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Abandoned Mill

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Abandoned Mill
The ruins of an abandoned mill in the desert backcountry

Abandoned Mill. Desert Mountains, California. April 4, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The ruins of an abandoned mill in the California desert backcountry

During the nearly twenty years since I first “discovered” California deserts, my experience with them has changed. To be honest, as a person largely focused on the coast and the Sierra, when I was younger I didn’t really know much about these wild places, and I wasn’t really attracted to them. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that I actually made a serious visit and began to “get it” about the things that make these areas so marvelous. At first, like almost anyone else, I focused on some of the most obvious and iconic places. But eventually as I returned to these places, especially to Death Valley National Park, I began to push out my boundaries bit by bit. As I did so I discovered many more interesting things about these places, both the natural wilderness and the human history. One of the first experiences that connected me to the human history was an accident. One evening I wandered away from a camp and just sat down on a boulder in an elevated location on an alluvial fan. I happened to look down to see an unusual rock. I picked it up and quickly realized that it was a cutting implement left their by the earliest people to make their lives here — and my notions of the depth and variety of human experience in the desert was profoundly altered.

That human influence has many facets. Certainly the experience of the people we now refer to as “native Americans” is central. (I like Canada’s term: “first people.”) Later settlers showed up for a range of reasons — pioneers passing through, prospectors chasing the dream of the big strike, folks looking for a job, people not well suited to living in the civilized world, and other. They all left traces. The prospectors and miners left lots of them all over the desert landscape, and you can’t travel around these places without running into it. The photograph is a detail from one amazing structure high on a desert ridge, abandoned only recently in the context of the larger scale of history, but still putting us in touch with an era that is mostly gone now from these places.

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

Desert Hills, Evening Shadows

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Desert Hills, Evening Shadows
Evening light and shadows on desert hills and Death Valley salt flats

Desert Hills, Evening Shadows. Death Valley National Park, California. April 5, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening light and shadows on desert hills and Death Valley salt flats

My first visit to the park was in the late 1990s, but I’ve been a regular since then. I visit Death Valley for about a week at least once each year, and have photographed all over the park. In a way, this first surprised me a bit, since when I was younger I was not attracted to the desert at all, having been brought up on the notion of the “desert wasteland,” and having been a huge fan of the high Sierra since I was young. So even though the desert was nearby I didn’t visit before a chance encounter that came about when I was one of the adult chaperones on a trip introducing high school and middle school kids to the place. Literally from my first view of the place (after crawling out of a tent in a high place at dawn to look across the valley), I was entranced.

The photographic subjects in this national park (and similar desert locations) range from intimate to immense, and several things always draw my attention. Because of the hot and dry environment, the landscape is laid bare in ways that are uncommon in other mountains. (Unless you go above tree line, into another of my favorite worlds.) The land-forming effects of uplift, mountain-building, water (!) and wind are easy to see. And this naked landscape is often painted and colored by the light in beautiful ways. This photograph, at least as I see it, offers several contrasts: between the low hills and the flatness of their surroundings, between the shadow and light, and between the small and the large.

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

Mud Hills, Evening Light

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Mud Hills, Evening Light
Mud hills near the mouth of a Death Valley canyon

Mud Hills, Evening Light. Death Valley National Park, California. April 4, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Mud hills near the mouth of a Death Valley canyon

On this evening I had taken a “random” walk into a canyon that I hadn’t visited before. It isn’t a tremendously popular place, so I had its narrow confines almost completely to myself, even though I wasn’t all that far from some rather popular Death Valley locations. The canyon itself was not the most visually striking Death Valley location I have visited, though its narrow dimensions and solitude were notable. I reached a blockage some distance up the canyon, and since the hour was getting late I decided to reverse course and head back out for early evening light.

As is so often the case with these canyons, I emerged from the dark and narrow canyon onto a broad wash that expanded onto an alluvial fan littered with boulders, cut by water courses, and open to more distant views. Golden hour light was beginning, so there was a lot to photograph, and it took me quite a while to work my way down from here toward the trailhead. As I walked, the surrounding hills became lower and more rounded as they gradually merged with the alluvial slopes that tend to line the valley. As the light faded with the already behind hills to the west, I made a final stop to photograph these folded forms, glowing in the filtered and soft light of early evening.

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.
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Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Evening Storm Clouds, Mountains

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Evening Storm Clouds, Mountains
Evening thunderstorm clouds begin to break up above high desert mountains east of the Sierra Nevada at sunset

Evening Storm Clouds, Mountains. Mono Basin, California. July 27, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening thunderstorm clouds begin to break up above high desert mountains east of the Sierra Nevada at sunset

The Sierra Nevada, being more out of the path of the seasonal monsoonal flows that beset the Southwest, often experiences clear weather — sometimes too clear! Most photographers prefer a more interesting sky, and we can actually be heard complaining about too much nice weather at times. But periodically the atmospheric flows shift northward and westward a bit, and we do see thunderstorm weather in the Sierra. Most of us love this, and we look forward to “interesting skies” when it happens. The clouds often build up over the crest and they can then spread east or sometimes west as the day wears on. Mostly the clouds will clear out late in the day, but sometimes when they drift to the east of the range the electrical show may continue into the evening.

I experienced some of this “interesting weather” on my recent visit to the Sierra around the northeastern portion of Yosemite. It actually turned out to be more interesting than expected, when a forecast of clearing on day two of my trip morphed into a forecast to daily thunderstorm chances. On one afternoon I took a hike up an east side canyon, and on my return I was surprised to find that there was rain falling near the mouth of the canyon. Before long in rained and hailed on me, and these appeared to be the kinds of clouds that might stick around into the evening. I decided to forego dinner, instead finding a high overlook and photographing the cloud show right on through sunset and into the post-sunset blue hour.

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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