Tag Archives: fan

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Winter Dawn, Panamint Mountains

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Winter Dawn, Panamint Mountains
In dawn light, the Panamint Mountains rise from Death Valley to snow-covered Telescope Piak.

Winter Dawn, Panamint Mountains. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

In dawn light, the Panamint Mountains rise from Death Valley to snow-covered Telescope Piak.

At the current time many road (and the locations they access) in Death Valley National Park are closed as a result of earlier flooding and washouts. Before I went there this past week I was aware of some closures, but when I arrived I discovered that some of my planned destinations were unavailable. I changed plans, improvised, and still found plenty to see and do in the park, and my list of planned locations remains for my next visit.

If plans had not changed, I would not likely have come back with this photograph. I often make relatively last-minute decisions about where to photograph based on light and sky conditions, and when I noticed that the air was clearer than usual — important given the vast distances in this park — I headed to a location with a view of the first morning light on the Panamint Mountains and their snow-capped summit of Telescope Peak. To give some idea of the distances, the highest peak is perhaps roughly twenty-five miles from my camera position.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Morning, Beneath Desert Mountains

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Morning, Beneath Desert Mountains
Morning light comes to badland terrains beneath tall desert mountains.

Morning, Beneath Desert Mountains. © Copyright 2022.G Dan Mitchell.

Morning light comes to badlands terrain beneath tall desert mountains.

On the final morning of my late-January visit to Death Valley National Park I decided to visit a location that I rarely photograph. I suppose there were two reasons for my choice. It wasn’t that far from where I was camped, and I wanted to get back to camp by mid-morning to take things down in preparation for my departure. In addition, it is a location that, frankly, hasn’t attracted me all that much for photography. I had been there before several times and came away with little to show for it. (Despite this, one client did purchase a number of prints from this location some years ago.)

An offhand comment by a friend had suggested a different way to look that the place, and as I looked at it from a distance earlier in the week I saw some things that caught my attention. So I headed out there before dawn on this final morning and followed a trail out to the edge of some interesting badlands country. As I worked that subject the light was working its way down the face of the bare desert mountains to the northwest, so I turned my camera that direction as the play of light and shadow evolved.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Wash and Alluvial Fan

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Wash and Alluvial Fan
Morning light on a giant alluvial fan at the base of a desert mountain wash.

Wash and Alluvial Fan. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light on a giant alluvial fan at the base of a desert mountain wash.

The immense scale of the Death Valley landscape is one of its most impressive characteristics. I’ve written that it reminds me of places like The Yukon, where features stretch on over great distances, so large that it can be hard to make sense of them. One day I decided to go to a location at one extreme edge of the park. Starting roughly in the middle of the park, the trip took me close to two hours of driving, the last portion on a gravel road. I also contemplated visiting another location at the opposite end of the park — it would have been close to a 100 mile drive in the opposite direction, with more than 40 of it on gravel. Driving direct between these two points might have taken six hours and covered close to 150 miles. From many high places in this park you can look across many tens of miles, often so far that the landscape may simply disappear in the distant haze.

It isn’t just the travel distances that are huge — many of the features of the landscape are so large that they defy an accurate sense of scale. The gravel fan in this photograph, spilling out of a narrow canyon at the base of one of the parks large mountain ranges, is likely about ten miles from my camera position and probably at least 1000 feet above the valley floor. It would take a full day to walk there, with no trail to follow. I made the photograph as the first direct sunlight had worked its way down the face of the mountain range.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Morning Light on Creosote, Dunes, and Alluvial Fan

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Morning Light on Creosote, Dunes, and Alluvial Fan
Low-angle early morning light on a clump of blooming creosote, sand dunes, and a huge alluvial fan, Death Valley National Park.

Morning Light on Creosote, Dunes, and Alluvial Fan. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Low-angle early morning light on a clump of blooming creosote, sand dunes, and a huge alluvial fan, Death Valley National Park.

This is the second of two photographs made close together on this morning in the dunes. I made it just moments after the first direct sunlight had arrived here, illuminating the distant fan, the creosote plant, and the curving shapes of the dunes. This light lasts only a moment, and when I saw it coming I stopped here, found this composition, and waited for the show. I like the way that the foreground light aligns with the softly-lit alluvial fan in the distance, and how the implied line of the incoming light likely traces the angle of the bits of dune at the left edge.

It is still amazing to me that such well-developed plants can find a foothold in this terrain — and beyond that manage to thrive on a high point along the dunes. This is not a friendly environment for most plants — it can be tremendously hot, it is quite dry, and when the winds get going these plants are blasted by flying sand. (I’m a bit too familiar with that last issue!)

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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.