Tag Archives: evening

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

Moonrise, Clouds, and Sandstone Towers

May 12, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

The full moon rises through thin clouds above sandstone towers, Arches National Park.

This was a very challenging evening for photography, but I’m happy with some of the results nonetheless. We had gone into Arches National Park and made it to the first big group of arches and other formations not far from what I recall was identified as Balancing Rock. Not far from here there is an impressive amphitheater of red rock sandstone, and all through this area a truly astonishing number of arches of various forms and sizes may be found. Since it was late in the day, we figured we would stake out our ground for golden hour and dusk shots right around here.

However, there were a few challenges. First, we were arriving at this spot for the very first time, with no previous research, and it was basically time to start shooting right about now! There was little to no time for scouting, so I headed up a trail towards a likely looking area of sandstone to see what I could find as the sunset approached. I soon discovered a second issue, or perhaps realized that an issue I had known about was going to be more challenging than I had hoped – it was very windy! As the light dims this becomes more of a problem as exposures necessarily lengthen. At some point, there is virtually no tripod that is steady enough, even when weighted, to hold a camera and lens rock steady in a near gale. I have some tricks up my sleeve though, and eventually I searched out some camera positions that were sheltered by rock towers and walls. By this time, the sun had dropped below the horizon and I was now shooting it twilight, which can provide some of the most beautiful light of the day when the right sort of “glow” occurs. It turned out that the full moon was just rising, though not over the main, iconic formations. There is usually a narrow window of exposure opportunity for photographing the moon. The moon is hard to shoot effectively in full daylight, but after dark it is far too bright for the ambient light – so one ideal is to shoot it in this time right around dusk when there is just the right balance of moon light and ambient light. Lucky for me, high thin clouds moved across the sky to the east and moderated the brightness of the full moon, allowing me to continue shooting in darker conditions so that I could make this exposure of the moon rising above nearby sandstone formations.

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

Green Hills, Rose Light

April 28, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Subtle colors illuminate a ridge top and sunset clouds in the Sierra Nevada foothills, California.

This is yet another virtual “happy accident” photograph. I posted a different version of it earlier, but it may have been long enough that I can tell the story again. I had been in Yosemite Valley and surrounding areas for the day, and late in the afternoon I left The Valley to head into Merced Canyon where the redbud and California Golden Poppies were blooming. The plan was to get into the canyon while there was still sun in the sky but at a time when lengthening shadows would bring some soft light to various deeper/steeper sections of the canyon. So I shot there until a bit less than an hour before sunset and then decided to head on home, starting the long drive back to the San Francisco Bay Area.

I headed down the canyon, still unable to completely stop looking at the newly green grasses, the plants that were starting to leaf out, and the profusion of purple redbud blossoms and bright orange California Poppies spreading up some of the steep hillsides. But as beautiful as much of this was, I wasn’t seeing photographs in it, so I continued on. Soon I reached Briceburg, where the road leaves the Merced and climbs steeply as it heads toward Mariposa. Climbing this steep section I continued to glance back over my shoulder at the green, chaparral-coverd ridges behind me and the clouds above them that were beginning to pick up a bit of sunset color. As I neared the top of the climb I almost kept going – doing the internal debate between it might make an interesting photograph and I’m hungry and I want to start home! – I passed a photographer set up beside the road, and I quickly recognized him as a friend. Now I had no choice but to stop, so I did a u-turn at the first turnout and headed back down the hill to where he and his wife were. I grabbed my gear, said “hi” as I set up, and figured that I might as well make a few final exposures of the delicately colored sky and the subtle tones that the last light imparted to the upper ridges.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Utah

Cliff, Green River Overlook

April 20, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The canyon of the Green River beyond a band of sandstone cliffs, Canyonlands National Park, Utah.

I was in this spot primarily to photograph the late afternoon and evening light on the canyons, cliffs, plateaus, and mesas around the Green River. (I’ve recently posted a couple of other photographs of that subject.) One of the many striking aspects of the geology in this park is the sudden cliffs that drop from the edges of large flat areas. The upper portion of Canyonlands park, called the “Island in the Sky” is such a place. It is a large and relatively flat plateau, and if you disregard the more distant surroundings it seems like a prairie or perhaps a high desert grassland. But when you venture to its edges you most often find, on at least three of its sides, that there is a sudden drop off where the river systems below have eroded the surrounding terrain up to the edges of giant sandstone strata. I’m not an expert on the area, but one thing I read pointed out, if I recall correctly, that there is an upper plateau (the island in the sky), a 1000 foot drop, another plateau marked by the White Rim, and then another sudden drop into the depths of the surrounding river canyons.

So this bit of vertical sandstone is the upper portion of part of that first 1000-foot drop-off, in this case with the White Rim plateau and then some additional canyons beyond. Shooting late in the day, I was pointing the camera almost straight into the light – something that I often like to do. This allowed me to capture the faint shadow in the atmospheric haze formed as the light passed between two buttes at the upper edge of the frame. It also created a bit of a challenge in retaining detail in the fully shaded dark-colored cliff face! I was able to capture this in a single exposure that tested the dynamic range of my camera, and then bring back a bit of the cliff detail in post. Now, if I had just had someone stand, or better yet, dance on that cliff edge… Any volunteers for my next visit? ;-)

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

White Rim, Evening

April 18, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

This was an evening of very special light in the Canyonlands, or so it seemed to me. I love soft, hazy conditions and perhaps prefer them to super clear and sharp conditions in many cases. So I had not been at all disappointed earlier in the day to see that the rugged canyons below the “island in the sky” section of Canyonlands were obscured by dust that had been stirred up by very windy conditions. We visited this spot earlier in the day and I identified it as one of several places I thought I might want to photograph at the end of the day, even though the atmosphere looked almost “murky” during the earlier visit. I knew that the edges of the upper cliffs of canyons, for example along the White Rim, could well be nicely lit in the evening light. So as we wandered around other nearby areas, looking for other shooting prospects, I became more and more certain that this is where I wanted to end up.

When we came back here a bit before actual sunset, it was cold and rather windy. The wind had been an issue though out my photography here and at Arches, and I was getting used to timing my shots for the lulls between gusts. I put on warm clothes and wandered out to the edge of the cliffs, where I found a small number of other photographers as well. Earlier I had not only decided on shooting here, but I had also scoped out a couple of likely compositions. One (which I posted earlier) was a horizontal composition that included the bottom of the canyon that would be out of this picture and to the right – a deep canyon that was carved by the Green River and its tributaries. The other was this vertical composition, that angled across the tops of a row of flat areas along the White Rim where canyons alternated with the flat surfaces above with more distant mesas and more mountains beyond. The atmosphere did something that it can often do when the air is hazy – it gradually changed from having a low contrast and filmy appearance with lots of golden tones and began to become more transparent as the light lowered and came in at a lower and lower angle. Here, very close to when the sun dipped below the horizon, the very low angle light strikes the west-facing cliffs and skims across the tops of the low hills in the foreground and on top of the mesa-like formations beyond.

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: evening

Moonrise, Clouds, and Sandstone Towers

Cliff, Green River Overlook

White Rim, Evening

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