Tag Archives: dry

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

Red Cathedral, Zabriskie Point

November 8, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Early morning light on the Red Cathedral and eroded terrain at Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park.

This photograph was made at what may be the most famous location in Death Valley, the overlook area at Zabriskie Point. The photograph does not include the famous view of the spire of Manley Beacon, which is just out of the frame to the left in this image. Instead, the photograph focuses on the “Red Cathedral,” a ridge to the right of Zabriskie that rises above the rest of the surrounding eroded hills, is a darker and reddish color, and presents a deeply eroded face.

It is not an easy subject to photograph, and I still have some additional ideas on how else I might approach the feature as a subject. Exposure is a challenge when shooting the Red Cathedral. At first, as light comes to other nearby areas, this feature remains dark. When the sun does finally arrive here – as it is in this photograph – it rakes across the foreground gullies, brightly illuminates the light-colored ridge to the right, and picks off a few small areas of the Red Cathedral while leaving others in deep shade. To add insult to injury, there is a good chance that a photographer will be set up in a position that eventually gives very flat front lighting to the ridge. I may this exposure very shortly after the sun hit Manley Beacon and just as it was starting to light up the foreground gullies and small hills.

Related: See my extensive posts on Photographing Death Valley

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

Dry Wash, Twenty Mule Team Canyon

November 7, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A dry wash descends past the barren hills of Twenty Mule Team Canyon in morning shadows, Death Valley National Park.

I made this photograph on an early morning in early April a couple of years ago. I had gone to Death Valley National Park’s Twenty Mule Team Canyon to photograph some folded and eroded patterns in the upper portion of this valley, and a bit after sunrise I noticed a trail heading up a side canyon. I decided to follow it. It started out by ascending the wash shown in the photograph and eventually reached a low saddle along the eroded ridge of between this canyon and the descent to Death Valley itself. When I arrived there, as sometimes happens in Death Valley, I discovered an old vehicle track heading down into the canyon on the other side.

Since I had some other plans for a bit later in the morning, and because I didn’t see anything immediately exciting on the other side of this ridge as the route descended, I instead backtracked into this wash. As my trail crossed the broad area across from this line of hills I looked back toward the main valley and saw this sunlit s-curve in front of the somewhat shaded ridge.

Related: See my extensive posts on Photographing Death Valley

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

Eroded Gullies at Zabriskie Point, Morning

September 1, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Low angle morning light illuminates a tortured landscape of eroded gullies at Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park.

I recently “rediscovered” this photograph while undertaking a major review of the past eight years of my raw files. (And, yes, that task is just about as much fun as you might imagine. It would actually be pretty unbearable except that every so often I find some photographs that I had perhaps forgotten or overlooked, and I also come across images that remind me of experiences that took place some time ago.)

This photograph was made, as virtually anyone who has visited the spot recognizes, by pointing my camera about 90 degrees to the left of the classic Zabriskie Point views. Timing was important, as the early light is just skimming across the tops of these tortuously eroded gullies, picking out the ridges between them but leaving the lower sections in shadow. But good fortune also played a role here. Death Valley is usually a clear blue sky kind of place, but on this morning I had clouds! At dawn, if I recall correctly, the clouds actually interfered with the light a bit. But as the sun rose the clouds provided a more dramatic background than plain blue sky and created some softer and diffused light that gave just the right sort of dynamic range for photographs.

On a technical note, if you are viewing this in the right web browser you can mouse over the image and see a summary of basic EXIF data. (Sorry, but this feature only works in web browsers – if you are viewing email, etc. you’ll need to visit the version at my blog to see the EXIF.) If you do check the EXIF you might notice that this photograph was made with a very humble example of photographic technology, the Canon Digital Rebel XT. This camera is a 8MP cropped sensor “consumer” camera that I acquired when I first tested the waters of DSLR photography. (I had actually used digital cameras back in the 1990s, but not for serious photographic work.) Those who wonder which of today’s current DSLRs might enable them to produce interesting and effective images might consider what could be done with such a humble camera. ;-)

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Eastern Sierra Nevada Near June Lake

August 16, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Trees ascend sage-covered hills toward the Sierra Nevada crest near June Lake, California.

Near highway 395 in Mono County, the main north-south route east of the Sierra crest, these open stands of large conifers ascend from the high desert sagebrush country towards the peaks of the Sierra crest, which rise much more abruptly on this side of the range than on the gentle west side. The tall ridge is above the June Lakes resort area between Mammoth Lakes and Lee Vining.

While my primary goal on this trip was to photograph in the Yosemite high country along Tioga Pass Road, smoke from a wildfire near Glacier Point in the park was drifting over the Tuolumne area and creating a lot of very non-photogenic haze. I had a hunch that by dropped over to the east side of the range I might be able to get away from the smoke or at least find areas where it wasn’t so thick. The smoke was still affecting the light near Lee Vining, but I didn’t have to drive too far south to get out of its path, though even here there is a bit of haze increasing the effect of atmospheric recession.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: dry

Red Cathedral, Zabriskie Point

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Dry Wash, Twenty Mule Team Canyon

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Eroded Gullies at Zabriskie Point, Morning

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Eastern Sierra Nevada Near June Lake

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

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