Tag Archives: face

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Post-Sunset Glow, Amargosa Range

Leave a comment
Post-Sunset Glow, Amargosa Range
Post-Sunset Glow, Amargosa Range

Post-Sunset Glow, Amargosa Range. Death Valley National Park, California. March 29, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Post-sunset light from bright red clouds casts a reddish glow on the Amargosa Range, Death Valley Buttes, and the Kit Fox Hills.

I think this might be the second in what I could call the “impossible color” series from my late-March trip to Death Valley. (The previous image was a photograph of a wash/alluvial fan at the base of Tucki Mountain, photographed on the same evening.) The lurid and unreal colors are not the result of post-processing gone horribly wrong – the light was actually this color for a short period. The sun had already gone down behind the Cottonwood Mountains to the west of my shooting location in the middle of Death Valley not far from Stovepipe Wells. It had been an interesting sunset with the usual increase in warm colors and some attractive clouds in the sky.

What happened next was something that is probably familiar to those who have done a lot of landscape photography, though they recognize that it is not something that you can quite predict. After the sun had set and dusk was coming on, some final light from far to the west, where the sun had probably already dropped just below the horizon, began to strike high clouds above Death Valley. (I could sort of see this coming, since I had noticed increasing color in the sky further to the east.) As this happened, these clouds began to glow with an intense red color that was mixed with the normal bluish tones of dusk light and surface features took on this purple/red glow for just a brief moment before the light faded.

(Those who look very carefully may notice that the sky above and to the east of the mountains is a lot bluer than the mountains themselves. The color had already left the sky to the east, and at this point was coming from the sky directly overhead and to my west.)

I’m still trying to sort out the complex geology of this area and the ways that features are named. The larger range containing these peaks is called the Amargosa Range, though it encompasses many smaller named sub-ranges – I think these might be part of the Grapevine Mountains, roughly in the neighborhood of Thimble and Corkscrew Peaks. A dark peak in front of the main range at the very far right may be part of Death Valley Buttes, and the banded foreground hills are sometimes called the “Kit Fox Hills.”

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook |
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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Lower Slopes of Tucki Mountain, Dawn

Leave a comment
Lower Slopes of Tucki Mountain, Dawn
Lower Slopes of Tucki Mountain, Dawn

Lower Slopes of Tucki Mountain, Dawn. Death Valley National Park, California. March 31, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dawn light on the faces and gullies of the lower slopes of Tucki Mountain, Death Valley National Park.

On the final morning of my recent (March, 2011) visit to Death Valley I decided to go to a spot not far from my campsite at Stovepipe Wells where I know of a bit of raised terrain that provides large-scale views of big chunks of this part of the Valley. I arrived before dawn and lugged my gear to the top of this rise with the primary plan of using a long lens to photograph across the Mesquite Dunes toward the Cottonwood Mountains at sunrise.

However, when standing in a spot like this one there are so many interesting effects of light all around that it is impossible, for me anyway, to just shoot that one thing. Far up the Valley to the north light starts to hit the highest peaks of several mountain ranges, to the east the light comes through and illuminates morning haze and layers of low hills, and to the southwest of my position the light began to reach the top of Tucki Mountain. So, between photographs of my intended subject to the west, I swung the camera though the entire 360 degrees to photograph many of these other subjects.

Tucki Mountain has fascinated me since I “discovered” it one morning while shooting on the “back side” of the Mesquite Dunes. At dawn I had been photographing the low dunes and other features on the side of the dunes that cannot be seen from the usual roadside viewpoints. As the light changed I worked my way up into the dunes a bit to photograph the shapes and textures of the sand, and I saw a composition that included this massive mountain to the south with it dark and jagged features. It was only later that I found out that it was Tucki Mountain. (If you have visited Stovepipe Wells, you have been right below the mountain.) It is a huge, sprawling peak – almost more of its own small range than a simple peak, or so it seems to me.

On this morning I first saw a big of the deep red first dawn light hitting the top of the peak and noticed lower ridges starting to pick up traces of this light. I swung that tripod head around to point this direction and decided to tightly frame some images of the overlapping ridges and valleys ascending toward the peak as the light worked its way down toward the Valley floor.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | 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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Red Rock Gully

Leave a comment
Red Rock Gully
Red Rock Gully

Red Rock Gully. Death Valley National Park, California. March 29, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A red rock gully and wash in the Panamint Range of Death Valley National Park.

I have driven past this area along the road from Death Valley up to Wildrose Canyon quite a few times, and as I do I always am impressed by the many convoluted little canyons and odd and interesting rock formations. Most often I have been on my way to some other place or the light wasn’t quite right, but I always take a look and make a mental list of little spots to keep an eye on. This particular little canyon is one you might not even notice unless you were looking carefully as you passed it. It is in a narrow section of the lower canyon where it is one of many such little landscapes. On this morning I was coming back down from shooting up higher in the Panamints and I was watching carefully as I drove, frequently pulling over to stop and check things out more carefully. At first I almost drove past this spot, but it looked like the light might be interesting this time so I quickly stopped and backed up and made a series of photographs including this one.

The question of how to frame this scene was an interesting one. As is often the case I cover more than one base and shoot the subject in several ways. Initially I worked with a vertical orientation that includes a bit more of the rough terrain a bit higher in the canyon. That image may still see the light of day! But as I shot the scene I also realized that I could use a horizontal orientation too, more tightly frame the entrance to the small canyon, and give up some of the upper canyon formations.

With many subjects I would prefer softer light, and I would probably try to shoot much earlier in the day or come back in the evening. But this canyon, I think, works well in the light of a bit later in the morning when the sun has topped the ridge and direct light hits the top of the rocks and reflects into the recesses a bit more.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | 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: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Silhouettes, Flock of White Faced Ibises

1 Comment
Silhouettes, Flock of White Faced Ibises
Silhouettes, Flock of White Faced Ibises

Silhouettes, Flock of White Faced Ibises. Merced National Wildlife Refuge, California. February 21, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A flock of white-faced ibises is silhouetted against evening blue sky and clouds above the Merced National Wildlife Refuge.

On this winter evening I visited, for the first time, the Merced National Wildlife Reserve on a detour I took while returning home from a few days photographing in Death Valley. This winter I have (finally!) started to become aware of the amazing annual influx of migratory birds in California’s Central Valley and I managed to get out there a couple of times to view and photograph the magnificent flocks of birds. Being new at this, I have been working at figuring out just how to photograph this subject, and I’ve come up with a few approaches that seem to work, though I have a lot to learn. In this case, I had figured out that if I just picked a spot and waited that eventually flocks would fly over my position, and that I would have a chance of photographing them against the evening sky and clouds. Being almost completely ignorant when it comes to identifying these birds – but no less impressed with them because of this – I had virtually no idea what I was photographing in the moment when I tracked the birds and made the exposures. In fact, it wasn’t until later that I noticed the wonderful curved bills of these birds and then found out from my friend Tom Clifton (who does know how to identify these critters) what they were.

As the birds approach I work to synchronize my camera motion with the speed and direction of their flight. I try to keep them in the frame, and preferably in the frame in a way that might create an interesting composition. And while I do that I try to keep some attention on the background against which they fly and some small remaining bit of my attention on the technical matter of keeping at least one of them under an autofocus point in the camera’s viewfinder. As a flock approaches, things seem to start out fairly slowly and it may seem like the birds are taking a long time to arrive. But as they get closer – especially when shooting with a 400mm focal length and double-especially when they are as close as this flock – the action speeds up, and as they pass overhead it is all I can do to keep them centered in the viewfinder as I let the camera’s burst mode do its job at the right moment.

There are things about the experience that the camera cannot capture. The cold and damp of a Central Valley winter evening might be evoked by the right sort of landscape photograph, but not by a photograph like this one – yet this is an integral part of the experience. Even more than that, the sound of these birds, alone or in huge groups, sticks in my mind as much or more than the visual image. If you have been there and heard it, perhaps a photograph may cause you to recall it.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | 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.