Tag Archives: folds

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

Desert Canyon, Morning Light

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Desert Canyon, Morning Light
Soft morning light on eroded landscape in a desert canyon.

Desert Canyon, Morning Light. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Soft morning light on eroded landscape in a desert canyon.

There are places and subjects that I can return to many times and still find new ways to see them. This photograph comes from one of those places, one that I remember thinking I was “done with” a long time ago,. But every time I return I discover something that I missed before. For years I have photographed from the little valley that is the subject here… but only recently realized that it could serve as the subject as well as a camera position.

This photograph, with its subtle forms and colors, is also more or less the result of an accident. I ended up at this camera position for the first time a few months ago when I went there to photograph something entirely different. Finishing with that other subject I turned around and saw this one, on that morning softened by atmospheric haze and backlight.

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

Desert Mountains, Morning Haze

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Desert Mountains, Morning Haze
Morning haze obscures the details on a series of desert mountains, Death Valley National Park.

Desert Mountains, Morning Haze. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Morning haze obscures the details on a series of desert mountains, Death Valley National Park.

This is another serendipitous photograph, and if you compared it to many of the other photographs I made at this location you would never guess that they came from the same place, same time, and same conditions. I was there to photograph dawn light on some nearby geological features. Dawn arrived with beautiful saturated light and clear air. When I finished with that I turned around to face the rising sun… and found the landscape’s details almost obliterated by the glowing, back-lit haze.

I’m not sure what, exactly, typifies a “typical” Death Valley photograph — but I know that these conditions were somewhat unusual. The haze made the successive hills fade into the distance, and the foreground area with the clearest details was in shadows. In the end, I think it has a mood that is different from any of my other photographs from Death Valley.

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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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, Photographs: Southern California

Layers and Folds

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Layers and Folds
The complex geology of badlands terrain, Death Valley National Park.

Layers and Folds. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

The complex geology of badlands terrain, Death Valley National Park.

The landscape of Death Valley National Park is extremely varied. The popular imagination first focuses on scenes of sand dunes, the classic signifier of “desert.” But the place is full of canyons, stream beds, surprising instances of water, mountain peaks, and even forests of several types. All of these are special, but scenes like this one may embody one of the the most common elements of this landscape, the exposure of its underlying geology.

The area of this photograph is incredibly complex. It is a maze of small, eroded formations and canyons, all of them interconnected. Underlying this are uplifted layers of material in colors ranging from nearly black to nearly white, interspersed with surprising bits of red, blue, and green. I photographed here early in the morning because the light was softer and richer and because the low angle of the sun entering the scene from the side delineated the eroded features.

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: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Security Shutters

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Security Shutters
Partially closed security shutters in front of a San Francisco business

© Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Partially closed security shutters in front of a San Francisco business

There are many things I enjoy about doing street photograph, and several of them have to do with the fast-moving and spontaneous nature of the pursuit. The urban environment, at least once you start seeing its possibilities, can be an almost overwhelmingly rich source of potential subjects, to that point that I often have to make a subconscious choice to deal with only a subset of them at any given moment. For a while I may focus on color, then I may engage with human subjects, then it might be effects of light, or balances of shapes and mass, or tiny details, or…

As we turned down this block between Stockton and Grant during an evening of night street photography in San Francisco, for some reason I made one of these gear changes. Moments before I had been photographing people and the fronts of shops that were closing up for the day — but as I walked down this street I forgot about all of that and instead photographed mostly small details such as the accordion pattern of this security panel over a window.

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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