Tag Archives: flow

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

Rushing Water and Granite Slab, Sierra Nevada

March 19, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A Sierra Nevada creek, swollen from spring runoff, flows across granite slabs – Yosemite National Park.

The image and sound of spring runoff water rushing over granite slabs are common in the high Sierra. Though the scene is almost a generic one, for me it also brings to mind many very specific places and experiences throughout the range. (Some of my backpacking friends might think of a spot along Tyndall Creek on the John Muir Trail where we have camped more than once.)

The exact location of this little bit of cascading and rushing water is probably not very important – you are never far from a little scene like this if you are near almost any little creek high in the Sierra! Here the water flows mostly across very smooth rock – so smooth that you can see right through the rushing water to the rocks in many places. In this precise spot there is a weakness in the rock and a small ledge has formed, and the result is a bit of white water.

I’ll share a few technical observations about this photograph, too. First, there isn’t a sharp thing in the image! While sharp focus can be important, I don’t think it is here. (Though if you look closely, the patterns of the blurred, fast-moving water are sharp in a fuzzy sort of way. ;-) The rocks beneath the water cannot be sharp because they are blurred by the water; the water cannot be sharp since I intentionally chose a shutter speed that allowed motion blur. Second, I have to admit that I did not originally have a black and white photograph in mind when I made this exposure. I worked on it for a while in color and though I liked the motion of the water I just wasn’t happy with the coloration of the scene. I finally realized that this image wasn’t about the “reality” of the rocks and water but about creating an impression of the rushing water – and that perhaps monochrome might work. Third, this is yet another “landscape” photograph made with a lens that the “common wisdom” (which often turns out to be not so wise) would say is not a landscape lens – a 70-200mm zoom.

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

Desert Pool, Panamint Range, Morning

March 13, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

A salt spring pool on the salt flats in Death Valley reflects winter dawn light on the east face of the Panamint Range.

Sometimes I hear people describe how they think or imagine that landscape photography is done, and I wonder where they get their ideas. I will acknowledge that there are many ways to shoot landscape, ranging from working very slowly and carefully to produce a single image, to shooting like crazy and seeing what you end up with. But often people dismiss approaches closer to the latter and assume that the former is the “right way” to shoot landscape.

In my experience it isn’t quite that simple. Sometimes the experience is like certain others in which long stretches of time during which one seemingly accomplishes nothing or perhaps just looks and thinks are suddenly followed by quick and intense spurts of work that come almost as a surprise and may be over as quickly as they begin. This little morning shoot in Death Valley along the edge of a the salt/mud flats where the water from a small salt spring spreads across the flats and forms shallow pools was one of these. Very early in the morning, well before dawn, it was difficult to know what the best shooting option might be. There were clouds in the sky that promised to block the dawn light and everything seemed gray and flat. I wandered a bit, not sure where or what to shoot, and finally, more or less by chance, ended up at this spot that I had visited earlier on this trip. It occurred to me that even if the light wasn’t great I could possibly find a photograph that included this water. So I stopped and began to unpack in no particular hurry.

As I walked across the wash toward the area of the spring, much to my surprise it began to appear that there might be some interesting dawn light after all. I quickened my pace and headed toward the area of the shallow pools, and when I arrived there a moment later I could see some color on the top of the Panamint range. I quickly found a decent foreground pool and as the surprising light worked its way down the front of the range I began photographing. I first made several exposures at much shorter focal lengths, including a larger portion of the sky and the foreground. Then I quickly moved the tripod to place this pool in the center of the frame and hold the reflection of the range. I had little time to contemplate as the light was changing very quickly. I had just enough time to find my composition and make a few exposures, and within moments the light was gone.

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

Morning Sky Reflected in Desert Stream

March 11, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Black and white photograph of water from a salt spring reflecting cloudy morning sky above Death Valley.

Moments before I made this stark and, I think, desolate photograph of the shallow stream from a salt spring flowing slowly over the flats of Death Valley and reflecting the light from morning clouds, the Panamint Range mountains at the left side of the frame had been briefly lit by colorful sunrise light. But this light lasted only a couple minutes and shortly everything went largely gray.

The patterns of the very shallow and slowly flowing water as they spread out across the flats and reflected the light from the cloud filled sky intrigued me as soon as I arrived at this location. But before I made this photograph I had taken a different approach, positioning the camera down very low and very close to the water so that its reflective surface filled a larger portion of the frame and then lining things up to catch the first light on the Panamints and its reflection. But when that passed so quickly, it seemed like the flat and gray effect could also make an interesting photograph. When I made the exposure I wasn’t quite certain, but I think I was leaning towards a black and white rendition of the scene. Frankly, there wasn’t a lot of color to work with! The sky was mostly clouded over, though there was a hint of faded blue in a few spots. Any color in the Panamints was muted by the distance and haze. The mud is essentially gray and white (where salt has formed) and the water held less color than the sky!

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

Cascade, Reflected Sunlight

February 12, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Sunlight reflects on granite ledges next to cascades on Tenaya Creek.

In this iteration of the “blurry-fast-moving-water-in-Sierra-creek” photograph, I was looking to cram a variety of elements into the frame – as you can see, the entire photograph is not filled with water. There is a transition from white water with flashes of sunlit light at the tops of the waves, through the water with smaller areas of foam, to water reflecting the golden late afternoon light from a cliff face on the other side of the creek, to some bits of streamside granite slabs along the lower right edge of the frame. To me, these areas of shallow water and wet rock reflecting more distant light almost have a molten quality.

One of the trickiest things about this photograph for me was dealing with the strong contrast between very blue tones in the shaded parts of the water and the very warm tones of the reflections. As every photographer knows, the light in shade can be very blue, especially when the subject is supposed to be white and is lit almost entirely by the blue sky, as is the case in parts of the turbulent water. Adjustments are necessary in order to make it look realistic and conform with the colors that our eyes tell are are there. (Our vision system is remarkable… but it is not objectively accurate!) But adjustments to the blue water, if applied to the warm tones of the reflecting granite, can end up looking bizarre and overdone in the opposite direction!

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