Tag Archives: distant

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

Across Desert Hills

Image Leave a comment
Across Desert Hills
Nearly-barren desert hills rise toward distant, haze-obscured mountains.

Special Note: Patty and I are presenting a Silicon Valley Open Studios event today. Look us up (Dan | Patty) or contact us for information. Visit us and see our prints!

Across Desert Hills. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Nearly-barren desert hills rise toward distant, haze-obscured mountains.

The desert landscape has many moods. When we are honest, I think most photographers will confess to a preference for focusing on aspects of this landscape that show only a part of this truth. (There’s nothing wrong with that, but viewers should be aware that photographs of the desert are not equivalent to the place itself.) We lean toward times and scenes where the colors are more attractive, we seek out subjects full of lines and interesting curves, we can be like to include the rarer spectacular skies rather than the common pure blue sky, and we can’t resist familiar and iconic subjects.

This isn’t one of those photographs, or at least I don’t think it is. At most times this succession of rising hills might barely attract your attention as you passed it on the way to something else. But I have photographed that “something else” plenty of times, so when I saw the late afternoon light slanting across the tops of the edges and fold, the bits of brighter vegetation, and the haze-obscured background I felt free to stop and look for a 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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

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, Photographs: Southern California

Eroded Badlands Hills

Image Leave a comment
Eroded Badlands Hills
Deeply eroded badlands hills and more distant mountains in morning light, Death Valley National Park.

Eroded Badlands Hills. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Deeply eroded badlands hills and more distant mountains in morning light, Death Valley National Park.

Special Note: Patty and I are presenting a Silicon Valley Open Studios event on May 21 and 22. Look us up (Dan | Patty) or contact us for information. Come and see our prints!

You could look at this photograph in several ways, but I think the complex patterns of this landscape are the main attraction. Recently I read an article about photography that suggested (to paraphrase) that landscape photography aspires toward abstraction. I like that idea a lot. I feel there should be more to a landscape photograph than an ostensible “record” of things in front of the camera. Ideally photographs can be viewed on multiple levels simultaneously — our relationship to the place and the way we see it, the sum of compositional elements, some level of mystery, suggestions of things not contained in the frame, emotional implications, and more.

This feels like one of those photographs to me. You could respond to the remarkable nature of the landscape that was in front of the camera. You could also consider the visual forms from an abstract perspective — the complex patterns of elements in contrary and parallel motion. You are free to ponder where this portrayal of the landscape fits into the larger scheme of landscape art. And who am I to try to stop you from looking for relations to other, larger things?

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.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

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, Photographs: Southern California

Desert Ridges, Morning Haze II

Image Leave a comment
Desert Ridges, Morning Haze II
Desert ridges disappear into distant morning haze.

Desert Ridges, Morning Haze II. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Desert ridges disappear into distant morning haze.

While the light of the very early morning and the very late afternoon is the most obviously appealing, there are ways to photograph at almost any time of the day. Because the distances in the Death Valley landscape are often so immense, there is almost always some amount of haze in the air. Not only does it obscure distant features, but it also shifts the color balance toward blue. In all honestly, sometimes this doesn’t make for the most appealing landscape photography, especially when distant features are included. But it is also possible to make the blue haze your friend, especially where it can enhance the sense of distance and scale.

I had finished up my sunrise photography at a different location on this morning of my early 2022 visit to Death Valley. My daily routine is usually to bet up very early — well before sunrise — and head to a first location, arriving well before the good light appears. You may have noticed that I didn’t mention things like coffee. Or breakfast. I usually skip them and get right to work. Later, after finishing with that first subject of the day, it would be easy to give in to the call of breakfast, but I usually continue on to a second location that holds some promise in later light. So on this morning I headed up into the hills to find a spot with a broad, long-distance view. From here I photographed across rows of intervening ridges as the haze gradually hid the landscape details to the point that haze and light and land merged in the distance.

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.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

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, Photographs: Southern California

Desert Ridges, Morning Haze

Image Leave a comment
Desert Ridges, Morning Haze
Desert ridges disappear into distant morning haze.

Desert Ridges, Morning Haze. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Desert ridges disappear into distant morning haze.

There is a series of lessons I have learned about photography in Death Valley National Park. They including things like seasonal timing, observations about the light at various times of day, the number of locations and subjects that are a bit off the beaten track, and the importance of spending time “poking around” looking for them. One important element sits at the nexus between the immense scale of the place and the qualities of its atmosphere and light: learning to love blue haze in the atmosphere.

As a photographer who has done a lot of work in places where clear air is common — for example, among high peaks of the Sierra Nevada — the bluish haze that is often visible across the immense distances of Death Valley was initially a challenge. (It still can be at times.) Dealing with this required me to learn some lessons about timing… and that I learn to see the haze as a potential asset rather than just a problem. On this morning I had finished photographing a location in the clear sunrise light. I headed to a elevated location with broader views… and lots of the blue haze obscuring distant features. The intent of this photograph was to work with rather than against that condition, and let it help reveal the scale of the landscape.

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.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

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