Tag Archives: dunes

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

Snag and Dunes, Late Afternoon

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Snag and Dunes, Late Afternoon
The bones of a dead bush in sand dunes in late afternoon light, Death Valley National Park.

Snag and Dunes, Late Afternoon. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The bones of a dead bush in sand dunes in late afternoon light, Death Valley National Park.

You might be surprised to hear that, in some ways, I’m not always a gigantic fan of wandering in the sand dunes. In some ways, they seem almost too obvious of a subject for Death Valley photography and, in all honesty, traversing dunes on foot is not exactly an easy process! (My favorite walking in this landscape is in canyons and along washes, where I can pick my own path almost anywhere.) Walking in sand, especially sand blown into the shape of dunes, is not easy — progress can be slow and access to some interesting goals can be almost impossible.

Yet I keep going back. While the dune landscape changes more slowly than you might imagine, it does change from visit to visit, and there are always surprises. The interplay of dune shapes and light provides what seems like an infinity of photographic potential. And there are few experiences quite like standing alone in an isolated section of the dunes on a warm evening as the sun drops toward the western horizon as warm evening colors and shadows arrive.

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.

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

Creosote and Dunes, Morning

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Creosote and Dunes, Morning
Morning light on blooming creosote in sand dunes, Death Valley National Park.

Creosote and Dunes, Morning. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light on blooming creosote in sand dunes, Death Valley National Park.

On my recent Death Valley National Park visit I had an evening and a morning to photograph these dunes — other than that I stayed mostly in remote parts of the park. My ritual for morning photography here is much the same as it has been for years. I wake up in the pre-dawn darkness, planning to arrive near the dunes as the sky begins to lighten just enough so that I can see my way. I typically depart from a point that is distinctly not the “usual place,” and as a consequence I often have my area of the dunes to myself. After a 20-30 minute walk I arrive at an interesting portion of the dunes before the first direct sun arrives, and I. begin to photograph, continue on past sunrise until the light becomes too harsh.

I made this photograph just moments after the first direct sunlight arrived, light that was somewhat muted by haze and high clouds. The effect was to create very soft and low-contrast light. We tend to think of dunes as being transitory, but they actually tend to change their shape only very slowly, and I’m pretty sure that I have photographed this same little cluster of creosote in the past.

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.

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

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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

Sea of Dunes

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Sea of Dunes
Layers of sand dunes lead toward barren desert mountains, Death Valley National Park.

Sea of Dunes. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Layers of sand dunes lead toward barren desert mountains, Death Valley National Park.

Death Valley is often a beautiful place, but there are places in this landscape that can appear quite desolate if you look in the right direction. In many landscapes most of what we see is what covers the scene, but here the underlying geology is often stripped bare and we are left with a landscape of rock and sand. Even where plants grow — more places than you might imagine — they do not cover the landscape in the manner of forests and meadows.

This photograph is about that way of seeing this landscape. The dunes build one after another toward their highest point, much like waves on the ocean. Beyond this there is a rugged desert mountain range. This photograph is what I think of as a subjectively true image. While you would never find a scene that literally looks exactly like this, this interpretation is true to one way of seeing the place.

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.

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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

Dunes, Sunset Light

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Dunes, Sunset Light
Rim light on dunes near sunset, Death Valley National Park.

Dunes, Sunset Light. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Rim light on dunes near sunset, Death Valley National Park.

For the most part I avoided tourist-popular places during my recent visit to Death Valley. However, I confess that I did camp in a well-known parking lot, uh, I mean campground for one night so that I could be closer to sand dunes. On that evening and again the following morning I headed out to some places along the edges and back of the dune fields to photograph this always-fascinating subject.

This photograph comes from the evening shoot, for which I headed to a spot where I find sequences of receding dune crests that are perpendicular to the setting sun. I aimed almost exactly in the direction of the sun just as it was about to drop behind mountains, and I performed some gymnastics in order to shade the lens and minimize flare. On a technical note, this subject provided the opportunity to use a special setup — a medium format zoom lens attached to my full frame camera using an adapter that provides tilt and shift adjustments.

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.

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