Tag Archives: distant

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

Dune Waves

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Dune Waves
Waves of sand dunes retreat toward distance desert mountains, Death Valley National Park

Dune Waves. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Waves of sand dunes retreat toward distance desert mountains, Death Valley National Park.

As photographers, we often take a great deal of photographic license in our creative interpretations of subjects. It is a myth, quite frankly, that some kind of objectively “pure” version of a photograph even exists. And if such a thing did exist, it seems like it would usually be a pretty boring thing for everyone except those using photographs as evidence of a thing. Most of us prefer photographs as a mode of expression, a sharing of the photographer’s way of seeing the world. I like to think that a good photograph or group of photographs tells us more about the person making the images than it tells us about the putative subject.

Sand dune landscapes lend themselves especially well to this way to this approach. While they do have a real geological appeal, when you look at them from an aesthetic perspective they are perhaps less about the fact of sand and more about light, line, weight, form, and color. They are never the same — the light changes, the conditions alter them, and each of us sees them differently. In this interpretation I decided to work in high-key and monochrome, hopefully creating a photograph that reflects the quiet stillness of the static wave forms of the dunes.

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, Photographs: Southern California

Desert Hills and Salt Flats, Morning

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Desert Hills and Salt Flats, Morning
Desert hills on a giant alluvial fan dropping to Death Valley salt flats

Desert Hills and Salt Flats, Morning. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Desert hills on a giant alluvial fan dropping to Death Valley salt flats.

Each time I visit Death Valley ‚ and when visiting certain other challenging landscapes, I’m reminded that my memories tend to focus on the most pleasant, easiest, and most beautiful scenes… and that there are a lot of intervening periods when the photography can be quite challenging. I had to remind myself of that on this morning, as it began with extremely unpromising light. The sky was largely overcast, there was some bluish haze in the air, and sunrise came with barely any warming of the color at all. But you (almost) never know whether such light may turn into something more interesting… so you try to stick with it and be ready.

A bit later, around the time when I might typically be starting to think of concluding my early morning photography on an easier day, the clouds began to thin and move into better positions, and areas of light started to play across the landscape. As I often do in such conditions, I remained in a high place with a panoramic view of the immense landscape, putting a long lens on the camera so that I could make photographs of small areas where the light seemed more interesting. The dark hills low in the frame sit on the giant alluvial wash leading down to the salt playa of death valley, where the landscape eventually fades into the distant haze.

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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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Winter Light, Granite And Snow

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Winter Light, Granite And Snow
Winter sunset light on a granite face and distant mountains fade into falling snow

Winter Light, Granite And Snow. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Winter sunset light on a granite face and distant mountains fade into falling snow

I spent the last week in Yosemite National Park, as an artist-in-residence sponsored by Yosemite Renaissance. (Thank you!) I stayed in the Wawona area and made the drive to the Valley every day. It was wonderful to have a full week in the park and, especially, in the Valley. I spend a lot of time in Yosemite, but most of it is in the high country during summer and into the beginning of fall, so having this unbroken block of time in winter was a special treat. Making it even better, I got some weather luck. Recently California has again been in drought conditions, and last month we had record high temperatures that often felt more like spring or even summer. But I arrived to find cold (at times very cold) conditions, and a series of weak cold fronts brought snow to the Valley.

If I recall correctly, I had spent much of this afternoon photographing in the eastern part of the Valley, and as the weather closed in the light there began to die. I finished up my work in that area and prepared to depart for Wawona, but leaving enough to time to stop along the way should interesting light appear. In fact, further to the west the skies were trying to clear, and intermittent light made its way through breaks in the clouds to spotlight various areas. I stopped here and waited a few minutes, at which point almost the very last light of the day cut across the edge of the El Capitan monolith as the snow storm closed in on the upper 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 and Amazon.
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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Rock-Covered Hill, Desert Haze

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Rock-Covered Hill, Desert Haze
A small hill covered with rocks, the salt flats, and distant mountains, Death Valley National Park

Rock-Covered Hill, Desert Haze. Death Valley National Park, California. April 5, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A small hill covered with rocks, the salt flats, and distant mountains, Death Valley National Park

I distinctly recall my somewhat unusual first view of Death Valley. It was perhaps about twenty years ago. My oldest son was in a school “hiking and biking” club, and their annual “Big Trip” was to be an adventure in Death Valley involving hiking, backpacking, and more. Most of the group traveled to the park on a small bus, though I joined a group of parent chaperones and the club adviser/teacher in an old Chevy Suburban, highly modified and loaded down with backpacks and other gear for more than thirty people. We drove all day and entered the park after sunset. Because it was late we stopped at the first available camp ground, the Emigrant campground along highway 190 partway down the route below Towne Pass. We set up camp in complete darkness, unaware of our surroundings, in a landscape that I had never before seen.

Early in the morning, perhaps shortly after dawn, I crawled out of my tent and in this light saw the immense light-filled space of this great Valley for the first time, a view that extended down the gigantic fan on which we were camped, the distant valley floor thousands of feet below, and the rugged mountains on the far side of the valley. I had never seen a raw landscape like this before, with no visible plant life and its geology laid bare — a place of rock, sand, haze, juxtaposed shapes, textures, often-subtle colors, and huge distances. There is, I think, a bit of that in this photograph, which includes a dark, rocky hill that I have looked at many times, its ridge sloping the opposite direction from the distant dark hills across the valley, barely visible through the opaque atmosphere.

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.