Tag Archives: gully

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

Eroded Formations, Bryce Canyon

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Eroded Formations, Bryce Canyon - Wildly eroded sandstone formations in morning light at Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah
Wildly eroded sandstone formations in morning light at Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

Eroded Formations, Bryce Canyon. Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah. April 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Wildly eroded sandstone formations in morning light at Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah.

During our early-April week-long visit to Utah, I discovered several things. For one, Utah is an amazing place to do photography. I just wish I had gone there much sooner – but now I’ll certainly have to return. For another, it is a big place and no one-week visit could possibly do it justice. Our main focus was on Zion during the first part of the trip, and then the area around Moab, including Arches and Canyonlands, for the second part. This meant that in between we unfortunately had to pass by some beautiful places with barely time to look at all. (Though we did get a chance to see a handful of such places enough that we know we want to return to them.)

One of the places that we only visited very briefly was Bryce Canyon. In a state full of visual superlatives, this is yet another almost unbelievable location with its high central area dropping off to lowlands by means of the famous rugged cliffs. We were in the park literally on a few hours and during more or less the middle of the day. Fortunately, there were some high clouds – and this was enough to soften the potentially harsh midday sun a bit. One thing I’ve come to look for when shooting in terrain like this – steep towers separated by narrow gullies – is the light the is reflected from the sunlit side of the towers into the shaded portions. It can produce a wonderfully colorful glow. To get this, it is necessary to shoot a bit later, when the sun is high enough to shine down into these gullies. It is also a good idea to shoot into the sun, with the subjects back-lit, as I did here.

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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Detail, Face of The Watchman, Sunset

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Detail, Face of The Watchman, Sunset
“Detail, Face of The Watchman, Sunset ” — The last sunset light on a portion of the face of The Watchman, Zion National Park, Utah.

As this evening approached, I had a plan to be somewhere close to the Zion National Park visitor center above Springdale, where I had seen the nearly full moon rising behind the ridge near The Watchman before sunset the night before. With that timing of the moon in mind, I estimated that on this night, the moon might rise in roughly the same spot but just a bit later. In many ways, the prime time for doing photographs of the full moon is during the golden hour, when there is sufficient ambient light to permit the correct exposure for the moon. But there is no moon in this photograph – so you might wonder what the point is!

I did show up here to photograph the moon, and I did get some photographs of the moon rising over the ridge. But after making a few moon photographs, I began to scan my surroundings a bit more closely, and I saw that the line between the sunset glow and the deeper post-sunset shadows was slowly working its way up the face of the Watchman. So as light/shadow demarcation slowly moved up the face of the cliff below the summit of the Walkman Watchman (!), I turned my camera that direction and made a few exposures of the rugged rocky face as it was lit by the last light of the setting sun.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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

First Light, Base of Tucki Mountain and the Panamint Range

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First Light, Base of Tucki Mountain and the Panamint Range - First morning light on the rugged landscape of the base of Tucki Mountain and the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park, California
First morning light on the rugged landscape of the base of Tucki Mountain and the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park, California

First Light, Base of Tucki Mountain and the Panamint Range. Death Valley National Park, California. January 3, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

First morning light on the rugged landscape of the base of Tucki Mountain and the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park, California

This photograph was made from a location a ways up from the bottom of Death Valley, from which I could look directly across at the lower slopes of gigantic Tucki Mountain as the first morning light worked its way down toward the lower ridges and the huge alluvial fan at the base of the mountain. At the moment I made the exposure the light was just beginning to fill this slanting area below the rugged mountains, and the light was softened by morning haze.

Tucki Mountain is a huge peak that almost seems to me to be large enough to count as its own minor mountain range. It rises above Stovepipe Wells, and extends a great distance east, south, and west of there. It is laced with deep canyons and its lower slopes are heavily eroded to reveal tilting and twisting strata. Another large valley lies on beyond the foreground spur ridge in this photograph, and beyond that the Panamint Range rises to its crest at 11,000+’ Telescope Peak.

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: Southern California

Mustard Hills

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Mustard Hills - Evening light on the Mustard Hills, Death Valley National Park
Evening light on the Mustard Hills, Death Valley National Park

Mustard Hills. Death Valley National Park, California. January 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening light on the Mustard Hills, Death Valley National Park.

This photograph was made in a fairly accessible and “civilized” part of Death Valley not far from Furnace Creek and the old Harmony Borax Works. I have passed these hills many times, barely stopping aside from a time or two when I did a little loop drive while on my way to some other place. I did photograph in the area once before and even got one or two interesting photographs.

This time I decided to use one of the small, rounded hills as a overlook for shooting some distant shots of various portions of the Valley near sunset. By walking away from the highway, one can end up on top of any number of hills which happily show little evidence of being visited even though they are relatively accessible. I first did a bit of investigation to find the “right” hill, then hiked back to my car to pick up my camera, tripod, and bag of gear. Once I got back to the top of the hill, the shadows of the Panamint Range were already well across the main Valley and moving east quickly. I made a few photographs of the shaded valley and the lower slopes of the range, and then I turned my attention to the nearby yellow-tinted hills, looking for interesting near/far juxtapositions. I found this one literally seconds before the oncoming shadow of the Panamints arrived – in fact, it is beginning to diminish the foreground light in this shot, and in the one I made a few seconds later the light is greatly diminished.

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.