Tag Archives: grand

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

Striped Rock, Grass, and Sand

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Striped Rock, Grass, and Sand
Striped Rock, Grass, and Sand

Striped Rock, Grass, and Sand. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. October 23, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A striped rock atop grasses flattened against the sand in the bottom of a slot canyon, Grand Staircase-Escalent National Monument.

I made this photograph in the first canyon we investigated during my late-October 2012 visit to Utah with photographer friends. We drove up a long gravel road and pulled off at a wide spot to find the creek that came out of this canyon, which we followed a good distance upstream. Believe it or not, this was the first time that I had hiked such a canyon and it was exciting to move from imagining the experience to actually doing it! We started out by essentially walking up the creek bed though the flats below where it left the canyon, wading through shallow water and little sand bars. Soon we entered the canyon itself and the “path” involved walking alongside the creek, frequently crossing from one side of the stream to the other to avoid obstacles, and sometimes just walking right up the stream bed, as that often provided the clearest path.

In the location where I made this photograph, the light became very red as it reflected between the upper sandstone canyon walls, and although I was shooting in the shade I had unusually warm toned light to work with. The sand here comes from – no surprise! – sandstone, and was very red in places. This bit of sand had been smoothed by the passage of higher water which had also flattened the grasses and wrapped them around this small rock with its bright red stripe.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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

Single-Leaf Ash, Green and Yellow Leaves

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Single-Leaf Ash, Green and Yellow Leaves - A single-leaf ash in a narrow sandstone-walled canyon begins its autumn transition from green to yellow, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
A single-leaf ash in a narrow sandstone-walled canyon begins its autumn transition from green to yellow, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Single-Leaf Ash, Green and Yellow Leaves. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. October 24, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A single-leaf ash in a narrow sandstone-walled canyon begins its autumn transition from green to yellow, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Now, coming back to this photograph quite a while after I made it, I distinctly remember that the gradient from yellow to green of these leaves caught my attention when I saw this small plant growing out of a crack in the water carved sandstone of this canyon wall. I’m often attracted by dark trunks and branches like those on this specimen, especially when they are seen against a background such as this pink sandstone with the patches of darker, lichen-covered rock.

The photograph was made in the same canyon in this national monument where I made a number of other photographs on this same very productive day – productive despite the difficult weather conditions, which were cold, windy, and a bit cloudy. Deep in the canyon and against this canyon wall, the best light is often that from completely clear daytime sky, since that sort of light reflects the best off of the canyon walls and carries with it the warm colors of the rock. Given that this was a tremendously windy day, the lack of leaf blur in this photograph indicates that it was made in a slightly sheltered area of the canyon and, no doubt, by waiting to shoot between the gusts.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Box Elder Thicket, Fall

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Box Elder Thicket, Fall - A dense thicket of box elder trees along the Escalante River, Utah
A dense thicket of box elder trees along the Escalante River, Utah

Box Elder Thicket, Fall. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. October 29, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A dense thicket of box elder trees along the Escalante River, Utah

Down in the canyons around the Escalante River the terrain varies a great deal. In some areas you might be walking more or less in the stream, perhaps wading up the center of the stream, crossing back and forth across it, rock hopping, and occasionally slogging through very wet sand and mud. In other areas, you might walk through groves of cottonwood or box elder trees of various sizes. Elsewhere you might leave the stream itself and find your way though brush or over and around rocks or slick rock. Sometimes there is abundant vegetation, and in other places you are in a world composed almost entirely of rock.

The river almost continuously twists back and forth and wind around one horseshoe bend after another. These bends seem to me to be important places of transition. On one side you might walk in direct sunlight and be warm. As you pass through the apex of the bend, if you were in the sun you are now likely to pass into shade and the canyon may narrow, perhaps forcing you to cross back and forth across the stream. I found this small clump of box elder trees in such a place. They were quite small – I imagine as a result of growing in an area that could be flooded from time to time – and they grew together densely. It is a challenge to try to make some sort of coherent composition out of such dense and intertwined growth. The interesting side light, reflected from another canyon wall, gave a bit of relief to the thin trunks of the trees, and there are a multitude of relationships to be found among their forms – they are mirror images of one another, or they twist almost in parallel – and in the background is such dense detail that even a very close look at a print shows that there is hardly a place where subjects beyond the trees are visible.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Old Cottonwood Trees, Autumn

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Old Cottonwood Trees, Autumn - Old cottonwood trees against autumn sky, Grand Staircase-Escalente National Monument
Old cottonwood trees against autumn sky, Grand Staircase-Escalente National Monument

Old Cottonwood Trees, Autumn. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. October 24, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Old cottonwood trees against autumn sky, Grand Staircase-Escalente National Monument

This is a photograph that I wish I had seen this way while I was there! On the scene, while wandering into a beautiful section of a big, deep canyon to photograph water, sandstone, and fall colors, I came across these trees (or this tree – they may grow from a common root system) and made the photograph in landscape orientation… and only realized while working on it in post that I really like it in portrait orientation, too. So, yes, this is cropped from a larger original photograph.

I don’t know how others will “see” this, but for me this version recalls a lot of older monochrome photographs of subjects like this from an earlier era – the era in which I first came to be fascinated by photography. Way “back in the day” when I first did photography, with the encouragement and help of my father, virtually all of the photographers whose work inspired me shot black and white. With that in mind, and with my early experience involving how to shoot, develop, and print black and white, I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise that I still love monochrome. (A number of my personal favorites among my own work are black and white.) In this one I even applied the virtual equivalent of the classic filtering to alter the tonal balance and lighten clouds and foliage and somewhat darken the massive, twisting forms of tree trunks and branches.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.