Tag Archives: foliage

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

Fall Foliage, Sandstone Canyon

July 6, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The colors of fall foliage and red sandstone canyon rock, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

These are the kinds of Utah colors that make some of us return to California and to find that “our Sierra Nevada” looks a bit more gray than we thought! In my experience, the color season in southern Utah begins in late September with the arrival of aspen color. (I have seen it, but so far have arrived just after the peak color.) It continues later in the month as the lower elevation cottonwood trees become intensely colorful. In some places the show is still continuing in early November.

The fall color show on its own would be impressive, but place those colors against the backdrop of Utah’s colorful sandstone landscape and the overall effect is very powerful. We returned from a daytime adventure elsewhere in Capitol Reef National Park and passed through this canyon area just before sunset. The light in the areas shaded by the tall cliffs was already becoming soft and luminous, and in this light the colors can become even more intense. We stopped and more or less wandered for as the sun continued to drop, photographing in the quite evening right up until the light was too far gone.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Agave Plants

December 14, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Agave plants, the Huntington botanical gardens

We spent the Thanksgiving Holiday in Southern California — and once we finished the Big Eating Day Celebration, we did other things. Well, OK, we ate more, too. Among those other things was a trip to the Huntington Library, etc. in San Marino, a place that we had not been to before. (The “etc.” above acknowledges the ridiculously long name of the place, a name the mentions galleries, library, and gardens. I wonder if people in the area perhaps just call it “The Huntington?”)

There was lots to see there. We started by focusing on art, both old and new — including an exhibit of photographs — and then moved on to lunch, followed by visits to a bunch of gardens: Chinese, Japanese, tropical, and desert. I wasn’t there primary for photography, but since I had a camera with me I did make a few photographs, including this close up of the beautiful leaves of this plant, whose form is almost always intriguing.

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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Streamside Foliage, Autumn Color

November 27, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Colorful autumn foliage along a Utah stream at the base of sandstone cliffs

This photograph includes several things that attract me. For one thing, the subject is visually very complex — and I enjoy the challenge of trying to create a coherent composition from such subjects. For another, it includes several visual elements that I like a lot. One is the juxtaposition of foliage and red rock, which is found so frequently in the Southwest. Another is the state of the fall color transition here — it is at the interesting point where there are still quite a few green leaves, but where the transition is unmistakable. On top of that, the varied foliage includes a wide range of original colors, from bright green (and the autumn hello) of the main trees to the blue-green and dusty colors of the smaller plants at the bottom of the frame.

This little vignette is found along the Virgin River in Zion Canyon, where the river provides water along its course to support a lot of rich vegetation. More specifically, here the river makes a curve at the base of a very tall section of sandstone cliff, a bit of which is seen beyond the trees. The cliff is so high and the canyon so deep that little direct sunlight makes it down to this spot, and instead there tends to be a lot of beautiful soft light.

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

Hope Valley, Autumn — Five Photographs

November 23, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

This set of five photographs features scenes of autumn in Hope Valley in the California Sierra Nevada.

A colorful grove of autumn aspen trees, backed by pine forest, Hope Valley, California

A “wall of trees” photograph made in the evening at Hope Valley, California near the peak of the 2014 aspen color season.

Forest and meadows with fall color, Picketts Junction, Hope Valley

Fall meadow colors along the creek in Hope Valley, California near Picketts Junction were highway 88 and 89 meet.

Aspen color and pine forest, Hope Valley, California

Brilliant autumn aspen foliage in shades of yellow and orange in the upper portion of Hope Valley, just east of Carson Pass in the eastern Sierra Nevada.

Autumn forest including willow and aspen stretches up Hope Valley toward Carson Pass

A giant pine forest, intermixed with the autumn colors of aspen trees, extends across Sierra Nevada slopes toward Carson Pass.

A colorful grove of autumn aspen trees, backed by pine forest, Hope Valley, California

Photographed in evening light, the curving shape of a grove of autumn aspen trees with colors of green, yellow, and orange.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: foliage

Fall Foliage, Sandstone Canyon

Agave Plants

Streamside Foliage, Autumn Color

Hope Valley, Autumn — Five Photographs

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