Tag Archives: haze

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Clouds at Dawn, Death Valley

April 10, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dawn storm clouds gather above Death Valley and desert mountain canyons

From this high spot there is a true 360 degree panorama — east over Death Valley, stretching far to the north and south with more mountains beyond, south and north along the spine of the Panamint Range, and behind across mountains and valleys and eventually a few peaks of the Sierra Nevada. Many times when I have been here the conditions have been at least mildly challenging, often with wind and sometimes cold, and on at least one occasion snow. This morning was relatively benign with temperatures well above freezing and winds that didn’t start to truly howl until perhaps an hour after our arrival. The quieter conditions made the contrast between deep silence and immense landscape even more striking.

There was a brief burst of sunrise light when we arrived, but it quickly faded as thicker clouds from an incoming weather front blocked the light. But the clouds were moving and as the morning progressed they began to open up a bit. At the moment of this photograph the clouds still blocked the sunlight, but a narrow band of color remained above the far mountains and brighter skies were appearing through breaks in the clouds. Below a large wash snaked down the bottom of the huge canyon toward the playa of Death Valley far below.

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

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Death Valley, Morning Clouds

April 7, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning sun shines through atmospheric haze and clouds above Death Valley

Death Valley is a very big place, and getting to locations sometimes requires a lot of driving. Photographing there often requires a very early wakeup call, and I’m often on my way to some location in the park well before first light. Leaving during darkness, often for a place very different from where I’m staying, means I have to make some educated (and not so educated) guesses about what conditions might be like many miles away and at sometimes very different elevations. As result, I often do not know precisely what conditions I’ll find when I arrive at an early morning location.

Such was the case on this morning. The destination was more than 6000′ feet higher than where we were staying and many miles away. In the past I’ve arrived at this spot to find very strong winds and very cold temperature. This time the temperature wasn’t so bad but we did have winds. Just before arrival at the final destination the sky lit up briefly, so we halted and photographed from that location before continuing on… and watching the light die as the sun rose. We consoled ourselves — we had caught a brief bit of good light and it was a beautiful spot to be in, photographs or not. Since we were there we went ahead and made a few photographs, and as we did so the conditions began to improve in somewhat dramatic fashion. The earliest hint of the afternoon’s upcoming dust storm appeared in the distant milky haze through which beams of light passed. Higher clouds began to collect, and dramatic light cut across the face of the arid mountains below us.

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

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

Lake and Peninsula

February 15, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Trees grow on a peninsula at a Yosemite subalpine lake, late summer

We have passed nearly halfway though our annual circuit around the sun since I made this photograph. It is now slightly past midwinter, and the photograph was made in late summer, a few weeks before the arrival of solar fall, though the signs of autumn were already everywhere in this drought-affected portion of the Sierra backcountry.

The haze in the atmosphere beyond the peninsula with its sunlit trees comes from wildfires that were burning all over Yosemite and the rest of the Sierra. One small one was burning just across a nearby ridge and a more distant but larger fire periodically fill the air with thick smoke. Wildfire smoke is a normal feature at the end of the season, but this year it was much worse than normal. Fortunately, every day the winds shifted, the smoke moved away, and we got some beautiful near-autumn weather — time to enjoy the golden-brown meadow grasses, walks around the lake, and the occasional climb up onto grants slabs that rose from its shoreline.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspens, Sagebrush Hills

October 21, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Backlit autumn aspen trees against a background of layered sagebrush-covered ridges

This is a different view of the Sierra Nevada — rather than the high peaks, forests, meadows, rivers, and lakes we have high desert sagebrush country, but with a few aspens as well. When I think of aspens, they first bring to mind high elevation areas of the Sierra, often near rivers or other water sources, but also in some fairly rugged high areas. I don’t, at least not at first, thing of dry and austere landscapes like this one.

These aspens grow in a transitional east slope area. The elevation is high, a bit over 8000′ in this case, but the climate is dry and more closely related to the lower east side semi-desert areas. As a matter of fact, surrounding this grove is a landscape of mostly rolling sagebrush-covered hills. As the hills lead higher toward the crest, the trees become more dense and eventually intermixed with conifers. The light on the further ridges is also an interesting story. it obviously appears when the sun is at a low angle, which on the east side most likely means in the evening, and that is when I made this photograph. There is a short interval as the sun drops in the late afternoon when it is low enough to outline the edges of ridges, but before it abruptly drops behind the highest peaks of the Sierra. I made this photograph within moments of the shadow of the high peaks arriving — in fact, during the time it took me to set up a follow-up shot the beautiful light highlighting those ridges disappeared.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: haze

Clouds at Dawn, Death Valley

Death Valley, Morning Clouds

Lake and Peninsula

Aspens, Sagebrush Hills

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.