Tag Archives: evening

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Potholes, Dusk

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Potholes, Dusk
Potholes, Dusk

Potholes, Dusk. Utah. October 23, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dusk light on the curving pothole forms of Utah sandstone

The grand landscape is a wonderful and impressive thing, but a bit of dusk light on curving rock can evoke the fundamental qualities of a place. This was my final photograph of the day, made just before there was no longer enough light for the kinds of photograph I had in mind, and as it was about to become to dark to find my way out of this landscape. Earlier I had begun by photographing subjects that were perhaps more clearly specific to this location, but as I continued to photograph and as the light changed I made photographs that I think are less about the particular location and more about the feeling of such places.

The light was tricky on this evening. There had been sunlight earlier, and at times it had been the beautiful soft yet direct light of the sun coming through high clouds. But it has also been very muted at times, as the clouds became thicker, producing the a kind of flat and colorless light that is challenging. But earlier clouds can lead to later sky color as the sun drops near the horizon and lights up these same dull clouds from underneath. As I finished with some of the more obvious photographic subjects I began to look at the patterns and colors of the rocks as possible subjects of more abstract images, and it was at about this point that the sky opened up for a few minutes, producing light with colors ranging from yellow to red to burgundy. I made this final photograph of the evening as the tempo of the work slowed in luminous twilight, and this light combined with the natural color of the sandstone to produce intense and saturated colors on the sinuous shapes of the rock. A moment later we all realized that it had become quite dark, that we had not brought headlamps, and that we had to negotiate some tricky terrain in order to get back to where we started!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Canyon Country Gulch, Evening

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Canyon Country Gulch, Evening
Canyon Country Gulch, Evening

Canyon Country Gulch, Evening. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. October 25, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening light in a gulch among red rock hills.

I can credit a knee injury for this photograph. Several days earlier I had been photographing in a slot canyon far from this location. As often is the case, there was a lot of the typical thick, slimy mud in the bottom of the canyon, although the tracks of other visitors had created a drier and less slippery path around the worst of it. However, at one point my attention strayed from the path (as it almost always does when I’m looking for photographs!) and one foot missed the trail and landed in a bit of sloping mud. This mud may just be the most slippery surface on the planet, and my foot immediately slipped few feed toward the bottom of the mud and a pool before I managed to arrest the slide with my other leg — in the process putting way too much lateral stress on my knee. At the time it didn’t hurt much, but fast-forward to perhaps five days later and…

… as we headed down a gully to toward another big canyon the knee started to act up, and at a point where the rest of the group dropped down into the narrower portion of this canyon my knee said, “No.” I let the group go on, explored a bit in the flatlands above the canyon, walked out, and went elsewhere to photograph. In the evening I returned to camp before the rest of the group and I had some time to kill before sundown, so I wandered off from camp into some beautiful nearby red rock and spend an hour quietly photographing in the evening light, where I found this little gulch with a lone cottonwood tree at its far end.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Evening, Near Fruita

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Evening, Near Fruita
“Evening, Near Fruita” — Evening light on the cliffs and hills of Capitol Reef National Park near Fruita

I had just arrived at Fruita (pronounced “Fruit-ah”) at Capital Reef National Park in the afternoon, after driving from near Kanab via a long gravel back road. After meeting a friend here and setting up camp it was late afternoon, and there was just time to head out and do some brief photography nearby before the day ended. We had an idea about heading into one of the west side canyons that are accessible by the popular (mostly) paved road, but we didn’t get nearly that far before we saw this beautiful evening light. Actually, we were probably not even a quarter-mile from the campground!

The light in this part of the park often poses a bit of a challenge late in the day. While one might look for late golden hour sun on these west-facing sandstone cliffs and peaks, the land rises from here toward the west, causing the sun to disappear from this area earlier than you might expect. But we got lucky, as broken clouds softened and warmed the light as the last sun touched these rocks just as we arrived at this spot. It is the kind of place I might usually drive past, as it is almost too obvious of a photographic location. However, I readily admit to stopping at iconic locations when the light is special, as it surely was on this evening.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

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

Forest, Granite Bowl

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Forest, Granite Bowl
Forest, Granite Bowl

Forest, Granite Bowl. Yosemite National Park, California. September 8, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening light on forests and a glaciated granite bowl, Yosemite National Park

Large slabs of nearly unbroken granite, left behind in the wake of ancient glaciers, are a prominent and characteristic feature of the high country of Yosemite National Park. There is granite all of the Sierra, but this granite often seems to me to be more intact, and rather than encountering fields of broken rock it is common to come across these beautiful structures of exfoliating granite, often still with areas of smooth and reflective glacial polish. Scattered trees have taken hold in surprisingly thin cracks.

This bowl is in such a characteristic place, in the bottom of a great river canyon, just where it begins to become narrower and steeper. The area clearly shows the effects of glaciation, from the smooth rock in the canyon bottom to the sculpted domes and faces above. I have photographed in this bowl before on several occasions, and despite shooting there many times I continue to find new ways to see it every time I visit.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.