Tag Archives: gravel

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

Dry Wash, Twenty Mule Team Canyon

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Dry Wash, Twenty Mule Team Canyon
Dry Wash, Twenty Mule Team Canyon

Dry Wash, Twenty Mule Team Canyon. Death Valley National Park, California. April 2. 2009. © Copyright 2009 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A dry wash descends past the barren hills of Twenty Mule Team Canyon in morning shadows, Death Valley National Park.

I made this photograph on an early morning in early April a couple of years ago. I had gone to Death Valley National Park’s Twenty Mule Team Canyon to photograph some folded and eroded patterns in the upper portion of this valley, and a bit after sunrise I noticed a trail heading up a side canyon. I decided to follow it. It started out by ascending the wash shown in the photograph and eventually reached a low saddle along the eroded ridge of between this canyon and the descent to Death Valley itself. When I arrived there, as sometimes happens in Death Valley, I discovered an old vehicle track heading down into the canyon on the other side.

Since I had some other plans for a bit later in the morning, and because I didn’t see anything immediately exciting on the other side of this ridge as the route descended, I instead backtracked into this wash. As my trail crossed the broad area across from this line of hills I looked back toward the main valley and saw this sunlit s-curve in front of the somewhat shaded ridge.

Related: See my extensive posts on Photographing Death Valley

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

Devils Cornfield, Morning

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Devils Cornfield, Morning
Devils Cornfield, Morning

Devils Cornfield, Morning. Death Valley National Park, California. March 31, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Low angle morning light silhouettes receding hills and plants near Devils Cornfield, Death Valley National Park.

Taking advantage of the low angle light from the sun as it rose above the Funeral Mountains, I shot almost directly into the light with a long lens to photograph these backlit plants (“arrowweed” I believe) growing along the fringes of the Devils Cornfield area not far from Stovepipe Wells. Although the compressed perspective from the relatively long focal length disguises the fact, I was shooting from a hill that gave me some elevation above the flat surface of the Valley here, and provided a bit better view of the tops of the hills receding into the haze.

I made a variation on this photograph at the same time that I posted earlier – it is in color and used an even longer focal length to get a bit more detail of the mesquite tree that is barely visible in the upper right area of this shot. The color image has a much less start appearance than the black and white rendition with its contrast between the light on the tops of the plants and the surrounding dark soil.

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

Desert Wash at Base of Tucki Mountain, Dusk

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Desert Wash at Base of Tucki Mountain, Dusk
Desert Wash at Base of Tucki Mountain, Dusk

Desert Wash at Base of Tucki Mountain, Dusk. Death Valley National Park, California. March 29, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Soft rose-colored dusk light illuminates an alluvial fan below a canyon at the base of Tucki Mountain, Death Valley National Park.

This is one of several photographs from the recent Death Valley trip that beg the question, “Is that color real?!”*

Yes, this really is the color of the light from this scene.

I learned quite a while ago that the interesting light most definitely does not end at sunset – often the best and most interesting light comes after the sun has set. Sunset on this evening had been quite interesting, but a few minutes after the sun set the last brilliant red light struck high clouds overhead and lit up the entire scene with this lurid and intense wash of color.

The scene is a large desert gravel wash where a drainage canyon spills out into Death Valley at the base of Tucki Mountain and forms a huge alluvial fan. I had climbed to the top of a low hill to shoot late afternoon and sunset light, so I had a good vantage point to view this wash beyond intervening hills. Tucki Mountain itself is a massive lump of a mountain that rises above Stovepipe Wells – what it lacks in terms of an impressive and jagged summit peak in makes up for by means of its sheer bulk. It constitutes a large spur off of the Panamint Range and almost seems like a small sub-range all by itself.

*After I originally wrote the text to this post I made a 12″ x 16″ test print of this photograph. As I often do, I put the print out on a table in our living room so that I can see it in a context other than that of my small studio. My wife, who is a very perceptive viewer and who has seen the results of, uh, printer errors (for real fun, print on the back side of your paper by accident some time…) looked at these colors and said, “Is something wrong with your printer?” Ah, I love critics! ;-)

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

Red Rock and Desert Hills

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Red Rock and Desert Hills
Red Rock and Desert Hills

Red Rock and Desert Hills. Death Valley National Park, California. March 29, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A red rock gully among the desert hills of the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park.

This is anything but an iconic image, but I think that it is emblematic of a certain type of scene that is often seen in Death Valley National Park once you get out of the main Valley and up into the hills, especially during the brief spring season when the light can be a bit softer and the plants a bit (relatively speaking!) greener.

The photograph looks up a broad valley that is visible from along the road that rises from the main road through the Valley and climbs toward the Wildrose Canyon area. Here the elevation is high enough that the dry, sun-baked flat land of the Valley is nowhere to be found. Instead this is a country of large valleys and plateaus, cut in places (mostly at the bottom of canyons) but rocky outcroppings and gullies. This red rock gully is easily visible from the road, though the odds are that most people just drive right by. I had seen it on several drives past this spot before I thought to stop and photograph it, and I was fortunate to be there when the light seemed just right.

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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.