Tag Archives: evening

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

Evening, Near Fruita

November 17, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

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

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

Forest, Granite Bowl

November 7, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

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.

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

Evening Light, Haze, Granite

October 27, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Soft evening light among granite slabs and cliffs in the Yosemite backcountry

Near our Yosemite backcountry camp there was a beautiful granite bowl, with a bench on top with an open view to the west down the canyon of the nearby river. In the late afternoon and evening we were photographing lots of mostly small details in this area — trees growing out of improbably small cracks and potholes, rocks, and the colors and textures of the granite slabs.

As the sun dropped toward the horizon, its light spread almost directly up the length of the canyon. A large wildfire in another part of the park had left the air smoky and the smoke added a warm coloration to the atmosphere. As these conditions came on I remembered that in the past I had found this tree high up on one of the canyon walls in the evening and had photographed it in similar late day light — so I turned the camera in that direction, and just in time! I made a vertical format photograph as the last bright light broke over the shoulder of the granite and lit the tree. I decided to turn the camera to landscape orientation, and by the time I did the light was already starting to leave the tree — and this photograph ended up with softer light and a darker quality than the first one.

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

Mt. Conness, Dusk

October 10, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dusk light falls across Mt. Conness and northern Yosemite wilderness

This ridge holds an astonishing range of photographic subjects, ranging from the smallest (tiny trees growing through cracks in the rock) through the intimate landscapes of trees and boulders and culminating in some grand vistas of distant ridges and peaks. For several days, even though there were other nearby subjects calling out to me, I returned repeatedly to this area, whose size cannot be more than a few acres.

I climbed up to photograph on this ridge one final time on our last night at this location. At first I went back to take care of some unfinished business — photographing subjects that I had seen but not shot on previous evenings, looking for a few in evening light that I had noticed at other times of the day, and working to perfect and distill images of certain subjects that I had photographed earlier. I finished most of that work as the sun set and the light began to go, and I started back across the ridge toward camp. As I crossed the ridge I caught a view of distant Mount Conness — named after the senator whose bill created Yosemite as a national park in the 1800s — in the glow of post-sunset dusk light that was still illuminating the foreground forest and granite.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: evening

Evening, Near Fruita

Forest, Granite Bowl

Evening Light, Haze, Granite

Mt. Conness, Dusk

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