Tag Archives: high

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

Ridgeline, Trees, Winter Fog

June 19, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A winter fog obscures trees along a ridgeline high above Yosemite Valley

It may be surprising to hear that this is a color photograph. Well, the camera thought so, but you cannot easily tell by looking at the image. I was shooting another nearby subject, or perhaps waiting for that subject to some light that would make it more “photographable,” when I looked up to see this fog enveloping the high tree-covered ridges above this part of Yosemite Valley, with the atmosphere gently glowing in the backlight.

The photograph is a reminder for me that it is often better to see what you can make of the conditions you find than to lament that the conditions are not what you hoped for. (OK, you can go ahead a lament a little bit—i think that is normal!) While I often go to a place perhaps expecting or hoping for particular conditions, I’ve learned that quite often the most interesting opportunities are not those that we can predict but those that surprise us or those that we find. If the atmosphere of the place, apart from your initial notions of how it might be photographed, is something that attracts you, then it must be possible to make some kind of effective photograph of that thing that you like. You might be hoping for colorful sunset light, but you know—or at least I hope you do!—that a foggy evening, or a rainy evening, or even a hazy evening of soft light can be a wonderful thing, too.

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

High Desert, Rock and Sage

May 26, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An upturned boulder stands in a wash below high desert mountains, Death Valley National Park

This was not a day like most that you would expect to experience in Death Valley National Park, although in this spring transitional season such days are not completely unexpected. Early in the morning we had been at a very high promontory from which we had expansive views of a huge area of the desert mountain landscape, though an incoming storm muted the colors and blocked the sunrise light. Soon after that it began to snow, and we spent several hours photographing in desert mountain snow. Oddly, a portion of this time was spent photographing copious spring wildflowers!

By early afternoon the main body of the storm was passing and the clouds began to break in some places, and while it continued to rain or snow in other nearby mountains we had sun where we were. We took advantage of this to visit an old historic site high in the mountains, and then we began our drive back to the Valley itself, where I had an evening subject in mind. Along the way we pulled over at a spot where I often like to stop and look at and perhaps photograph certain things. While there I looked back across this valley, with hills briefly green from spring moisture, and noticed the juxtaposition of the shape of this layered rock in the foreground and those soft hills with moving cloud shadows in the distance.

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

Panamint Mountains, Spring

May 8, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Cloud shadows pass across valleys of spring-green high desert plants in the Panamint Mountains of Death Valley National Park

I like to think of this photograph as one that may offer a more truthful presentation of the character of Death Valley. As photographers, almost all of us to looking for the extraordinary—momentary instances of astonishing light, brilliant color towering clouds, dramatic light, and more. And, of course, there is nothing remotely wrong with that. It is these things that draw us to these places and which drive our search once we get there. We will often put up with, sometimes patiently and sometimes not, hours or days of what some call “blah” light in order to be able to photograph brief instance of something atypically powerful. But we must be aware that what we find and show in this brief slices of time is often special precisely because it is unusual.

A few years back I started thinking more about my relationship with the landscape of Death Valley and the surrounding terrain. I had been focusing on the extraordinary—and I still do—and on the way to such places I often passed through other areas, sometimes without taking the time to think about what I was seeing in those moments. I think that it was partially out of frustration that I arrived at the idea of trying to see these subjects more clearly and try to figure out how to photograph them. After all, I knew—at least once I stopped to think about it—that my love of this places was not limited to just the unusual and extraordinary moments, but that it also included midday quiet in the heat and subtle colors of sage country, a series of simple overlapping ridges, a bit of rock. And once I recognized this I started to think that these things, and not just sunrises and sunsets and impressive formations and unusual clouds, might make worthy subjects if I slowed down and tried to understand them. And this is one of those photographs. There is no single, impressive subject in this frame. Instead we have the almost uniform pale green of the arid mountain plants on an early spring day after rain, when the plants produce a subtle but surprising green coloration that varies as the land alternates between gullies and the tops of low hills and clouds from a cleaning storm move across the landscape.

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

Clearing Storm, Panamint Mountains

April 17, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The remnant clouds of a spring storm clear over the snow-dusted peaks of the Panamint Mountains, Death Valley National Park

This was one of the most interesting and varied days I’ve spent in Death Valley, in terms of everything from the weather to photographic subjects. (It probably wasn’t the most varied day—that might be a story for another post sometime.) As is typical, the day began well before dawn with an early wake-up call and a long drive in the dark. In this case, the objective was to be at a high place with a panoramic view before sunrise. We arrived there in the early pre-dawn light to find that clouds were moving in. There was a brief moment of photographable sunrise light, and then the scene went relatively gray, though still with some interesting possibilities. As we left this spot we saw snow flurries on the peaks around us. We then photographed some old remnants of the mining activities in these mountains as the snow increased, at one point coming down fast enough that we decided to beat a retreat to a lower elevation. Intermittently things would clear a bit, and we took advantage of the soft light to make midday photographs of the abundant spring wildflowers.

Eventually the weather began to break up a bit and we had some sun. By this time in the afternoon what had been more or less universal cloudiness and snow in these mountains had transformed into scattered cells of precipitation, but mostly into beautiful blue sky interrupted by billowing, sunlit clouds, whose shadows raced across the high desert landscape. Here, as we returned from investigating what was at the end of a gravel back-country road and were about to return to the paved highway, we stopped to take one last look back towards the higher peaks of the Panamint Mountains.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: high

Ridgeline, Trees, Winter Fog

High Desert, Rock and Sage

Clearing Storm, Panamint Mountains

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