Tag Archives: face

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

Autumn Cottonwood, Red Rock Strata

November 29, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn cottonwood tree foliage backed by red rock strata

Yes, this is just a very colorful tree! We headed out early on this morning, not quite certain what we would photograph, but thinking that it would involve early morning light and not be too far from the Fruita campground at Capitol Reef National Park. We had some thoughts about perhaps photographing in a canyon, but since that is more of an activity for later, when the sun is higher, we did not start with that.

It was a cloudy morning, though initially — if my memory serves — it was the “interesting” sort of cloudiness that allows some sun to poke through the clouds and produce interesting and variable light. However, before long a large deck of high clouds moved in and killed that light. It was time to reevaluate our plans! Soft light can be fine light for some purposes. It may not always have the drama of early morning, low angle sunlit and broken clouds, but it can produce beautiful colors and bring light into what might otherwise be very dark shadows. We headed west from the Fruita district, eventually stopping for a variety of subjects, but this big, beautiful cottonwood tree standing against the slanting sandstone strata was hard to pass up.

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

Zion Canyon Trees — Three Photographs

November 20, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Not wanting to string this out too long, I’m grouping some photographs together in single posts. This set includes three from Zion Canyon, near the road’s end and the beginning of the route into the Narrows. (My hiking on this visit was largely limited to this short walk, as I had messed up my knee a few days earlier.)

I find the juxtaposition of canyon trees, especially when the foliage is taking on fall colors, and the sandstone cliff walls to be irresistible. Here the trees are mostly cottonwoods — including some very large and old specimens — and perhaps a few box elders. The coloration of the sandstone in this part of the world varies, sometimes in obvious ways (such as the contrasting red and white layers higher in the park) and sometimes more subtly. Here the contrast is subtle, with some of these rocks picking up an almost purple quality, which is then further modified by the color of light reflecting down from canyon walls high above.

And old cottonwood tree towers over streamside autumn foliage deep in a sandstone canyon

This giant and magnificent tree stands near a trail junction in a curve of the canyon, from some angle forming an impressive centerpiece of this amphitheater-like location.

Box elder trees with autumn foliage along the base of a sandstone cliff

The box elder trees provide much the same fall color as the aspens, but they have a more delicate form, with thinner branches that seem to more likely bend and drop toward the ground.

Autumn color along a canyon stream at the base of sandstone cliffs

These colorful trees are just a few of many that grow along the edges of the Virgin River as it flows right along the base of this sandstone cliff at the bottom of the canyon.

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

Last Light, Yosemite Backcountry

October 2, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Final evening light on the face of a granite dome in the Yosemite National Park backcountry

As I have mentioned previously while sharing this set of photographs from my early September Yosemite backcountry photography, the particular ridge from which I made this photograph drew me back repeatedly. I climbed it to photograph in the early morning and late in the evening, and in conditions ranging from clear to hazy to scattered clouds. While the larger scene might be regarded as “typical Sierra,” it was possible to juxtapose and pick out all sorts of interesting elements, and the changing light transformed this landscape in surprisingly striking ways.

This was a particularly beautiful evening, and the light and landscape offered up many possibilities over the time I was there — from very late afternoon right on past the sunset. This was one of my final exposures of the evening, and the very last beams of red sunset light were coming up the canyon from the west after passing through a lot of low-level atmospheric haze in order to softly illuminate the edges of the granite slopes along the top of the near ridge as the rest of the scene was already falling into “blue hour” light.

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

Monolith, Trees, and New Snow

August 7, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Trees on a snowy bench in front of the granite face of Half Dome

With this photograph I continue on the theme of Yosemite Valley winter photographs I made back in the late winter, while there for the opening of an exhibit in the Valley. The opening was just one evening, but that meant that we had most of three days to photograph. It had been anything but a snowy winter in the Sierra, but we were fortunate to arrive not long after one of the few snowstorms, and the Valley walls and pinnacles had a thin coating of new snow.

While out in a meadow photographing other subjects I looked up and saw that some of that snow was still plastered to the vertical face of Half Dome and to the row of trees standing precariously on the ledge running down from right to left at the base of the main cliff. Such places in the Valley are very interesting to me — spots that everyone can see but which remain virtually inaccessible to all but some climbers… and to photographers with long lenses who look closely. And, yes, I’m aware of the obvious precedent when I use the term “monolith” in the title of the photograph.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: face

Autumn Cottonwood, Red Rock Strata

Zion Canyon Trees — Three Photographs

Last Light, Yosemite Backcountry

Monolith, Trees, and New Snow

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