Tag Archives: face

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

Tree and Sandstone Cliff

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Tree and Sandstone Cliff
A solitary tree against red rock sandstone cliff at Capitol Reef National Park.

This is yet another photograph where I’m pretty sure where I made it but willing to admit to a bit of uncertainty. My recollection, reinforced by examining the imagines just before and after it in my chronological record, is that I made it in a canyon at Capitol Reef National Park, and probably in a location that isn’t particularly hard to access. I’m always intrigued by the wild color contrasts in this part of the world, perhaps even more so having the largely gray Sierra Nevada as my home range!

I”ve been to Capitol Reef a few times now, though not yet enough to know the part the way I know places like Yosemite where I’ve probably spent something approaching two years of my life in total. One thing that fascinates me about Capitol Reef — among may fascination-worthy features — is the contrast between the relatively small front country section with its lovely campground and easy road access and the much larger and much more remote sections of the park that are not nearly so easy to get to.

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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: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Cliff and Trees

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Cliff and Trees
Trees and brush at the base of a sandstone cliff along the Virgin River, Zion National Park.

Cliff and Trees. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trees and brush at the base of a sandstone cliff along the Virgin River, Zion National Park.

For an autumn photograph there isn’t a lot of autumn color here! Back in 2012 I made two trips to Southern Utah. The pattern of fall color change in Utah, in my somewhat limited experience, is both different than what I’m used to in California and spread out across many weeks and the many climate zones of the state. The first lesson I learned was very early in October: the aspens in Utah change earlier than those in the Eastern Sierra that I know so well. A second lesson was that the cottonwoods and other trees and bushes in the redrock canyon country change next, and they can be spectacular. The third lesson — illustrated here — is that the colors in Zion Canyon apparently change quite a bit later. I haven’t hit the peak there yet, but I understand that it can be as late as the beginning of November.

This visit was barely two weeks into October, and much of the vegetation in Zion Canyon was still quite green. This photograph comes from a very popular and often crowded area just beyond the road-end at the upper end of the canyon, where many begin their walk/wade up the Virgin River. This is, I think, one of those places that is “iconic for a reason.” This section features a relatively flat and wide canyon bottom, full of trees that can benefit from occasional flooding. But for me the massive canyon walls that follow the river’s course are the main show — the sandstone here is massive and nearly vertical.

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 and Amazon.

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

Open Book

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Open Book
A sandstone cliff meets the bottom of a Utah red rock country wash.

Open Book. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A sandstone cliff meets the bottom of a Utah red rock country wash.

My virtual journey back through Utah continues. Since opportunities to go into the field are limited right now I am instead digging back though tens of thousands of raw files in my archives. I have always recognized that I leave some photographs behind as I move on to the next thing — and sometimes I’m not just not yet ready to “see” how a photograph will work. For years I’ve made these return visits to the old files, most often with an end-of-the-year traverse of that year’s images before moving on. This time I’m starting back in 2012 and working my way forward slowly.

I made this photograph in the first slot canyon that I ever visited. You might wonder how I managed to get to 2012 without visiting this kind of terrain. It is a long story, but for some reasons I’ve explained elsewhere I simply didn’t get to Utah and the Southwest until about a decade ago. Shame on me! As we walked into this canyon I really had little idea of what to expect, but I was entranced. This bit of sandstone cliff wall sat immediately next to the sandy bottom of the wash, and the color of the diffused light warmed as it bounced down from above between the canyon walls.

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 and Amazon.

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

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

Red Rock Detail

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Red Rock Detail
A section of sandstone cliff, Arches National Park.

Red Rock Detail. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A section of sandstone cliff, Arches National Park.

There is a story about my first visit to Arches National Park that we like to recount. (Perhaps you have heard it?) It derives from a habit of mine of not doing too much research before visiting a new location — I prefer to let some things remain a mystery so that I can have the joy of “discovering” the place for myself. That was the case on our first visit to Arches. I really didn’t know anything more than that there were (duh!) some archest there and that it was a national park. We arrived in Moab in the early afternoon, and finding ourselves with more time that day than expected we decided to make a quick first visit. A reliable source reports that I pretty much lost my composure upon “discovering” this collection of towers, arches, cliffs, and more.

This photograph comes from our second visit, a few years later and during a different season. By now we knew a bit more about what to expect, and I arranged to be in a particular spot early in the morning with the prospect of photographing dawn light on sandstone features. I made quite a few photographs that morning, but this one is an example of my interest in using long lenses to photograph small details of the landscape.

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 and Amazon.

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.