Tag Archives: fractured

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

Towers and Shadows, Sunrise

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Towers and Shadows, Sunrise
Red rock towers cast shadows on a cliff face in sunrise light, Zion National Park.

Towers and Shadows, Sunrise. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Red rock towers cast shadows on a cliff face in sunrise light, Zion National Park.

We have not visited Utah since before the 2016 election. I love Utah’s diverse and beautiful landscape, but once the state joined in the process of dismantling public lands I felt that the ethical — though painful — choice was to stay away until things were once again set right. Earlier this month we made it back and I can report that the state is as beautiful as it was before… and that I’m very glad to have been able to return. To a Californian, used to the mostly-gray landscapes of my beloved Sierra Nevada, the technicolor landscape of Utah is a revelation.

This photograph is another intuit combines planning and dumb luck. We got up a bit later on this morning. There was no need to catch the first shuttle into the canyon since our plan was to drive to higher country. This particular subject was on my list of sunrise possibilities, but when we arrived at the spot where I thought I could set up I could not find a place to pull over. That turned out to be good luck, as a few minutes later I figured out that a more elevated perspective was possible a bit further up the road. We found a place to pull over just. before the sun/shadow line reached the pinnacles, and I worked quickly to set up as the light continued to descend. I made a series of exposures starting with the first glimmer of direct light on the highest tower, and then I kept photographing as the light moved lower on the face, projecting the shadows of the ledge and towers on the cliff wall.

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Ledge Meets Lake

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Ledge Meets Lake
A ledge llittered with fractured rocks above the shorline of an alpine Sierra Nevada lake.

Ledge Meets Lake. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A ledge llittered with fractured rocks above the shorline of an alpine Sierra Nevada lake.

This little conjunction of rock and water has fascinated me since I first saw it. The lake is in the eastern Sierra Nevada backcountry, above another lake where a group of us went to photograph for a week a couple of years ago. I have a long acquaintance with this upper lake, having first visited it perhaps a couple of decades ago. It is fascinating how my perception of the place changed over time. From that long-ago first visit I only remember that there wasn’t much in the way of obvious campsites here. On later visits I took in more of the alpine surrounds of this lake, which is set in a high bowl. Over several days of repeated visits on the more recent trip I became very familiar with the rocky terrain around the outlet of the lake.

While I’m not completely averse to photographing icons, I spend most of my photographic time in places like this looking for things that I would overlook without careful attention. Seen this way, there are photographic opportunities almost everywhere I look. In fact, I “saw” this little scene it at least four (and counting!) different ways, several of which attentive viewers may recall.

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Trees, Ledge, Fractured Rock

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Trees, Ledge, Fractured Rock
Two trees grow tenaciously on a narrow ledge above a fractured cliff face.

Trees, Ledge, Fractured Rock. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two trees grow tenaciously on a narrow ledge above a fractured cliff face.

Nearly a decade ago I joined a group of friends and photographers at a Yosemite backcountry location. I was only there a few days, but they stayed for over a week — including a bout of incredibly cold early autumn weather than I managed to miss. (Although I wan’t there to experience it, I have heard the stories many times on subsequent backcountry trips with these folks.)

We were camped in a scenic location within in walking distance of a remarkable range things to see and photograph — lakes, meadows, ridges, granite slabs and ones, forest, and more. But I made this photograph only a few feet from camp, where low, fractured cliffs began to climb near the edge fo the lake and meadows. Like anyone who spends time there, I’ve long been fascinated by the relationship between Sierra trees and rock. Some trees, especially those growing in the rock, manage to eke our a life in little more than cracks in the granite and, in doing so, they sometimes seem closer to rock than to living things.

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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Disrupted Strata

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Disrupted Strata
The fractured and bent layers of a fractured boulder in a Utah slot canyon.

Disrupted Strata. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The fractured and bent layers of a fractured boulder in a Utah slot canyon.

This jumble of rocks sits in a Southern Utah canyon, piled on debris and the lower face of a cliff that runs along the banks of a small creek. The bottoms of such canyons are, for obvious reasons, places full of all sorts of debris that either falls from the surrounding cliffs or is washed down the canyon in periodic floods. A good part of the challenge of making progress through such terrain involves contending with this detritus.

As is so often the case in these landscapes, the initial appearance of features may mislead the viewer about their history. Rocks, of course, seem quite solid and immutable. But this little vignette of almost nothing but rock actually shows more about how much it changes than about its stability. This rock was formed in layers laid down by water a long, long time ago. Those layers were compressed, folded, upended and broken over time. Here we see a snapshot of that process. Lying atop a smoother section of the cliff, this deteriorating boulder’s layers are made apparent as they break apart and realign.

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.

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.