Tag Archives: highway

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

Red Rock and Trees, Afternoon Light

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Red Rock and Trees, Afternoon Light - Back-lit trees in low afternoon sun light grow on rocky sandstone high country, Zion National Park
Back-lit trees in low afternoon sun light grow on rocky sandstone high country, Zion National Park

Red Rock and Trees, Afternoon Light. Zion National Park. October 22, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Back-lit trees in low afternoon sun light grow on rocky sandstone high country, Zion National Park

As much as I have come to love Zion Canyon itself, with its monumental cliffs, winding Virgin River, and cottonwood trees, something still draws me more strongly to the high country such as that found along the Mount Carmel Highway. (I’m sure that the “real” backcountry will eventually appeal to me just as much, but my “getting acquainted” process with Zion is still in its relatively early phase.) This higher elevation terrain, which can at first perhaps seem somewhat overly complex and even “disorganized – if that makes sense – has come to hold more interest for me photographically, though it has been a bit more difficult to figure out how and when and where to photograph it. I was intrigued by these wonderfully complex sandstone patterns of curves and lines when I first saw them, but initially had a hard time seeing coherent photographs among them.

Since my first visit – less than a year ago, believe it or not – I have now had the opportunity to revisit this area on quite a few days, and I feel like I’m starting to “get” its rhythms. Initially it was a matter of passing along the roadway through the park and catching glimpses of juxtapositions of features, bits of light or color, and various canyons and prominences and thinking “there must be a way to photograph that.” Return visits, in various types of light, during two seasons, and at all hours of the day have helped me figure it out. Among my favorite subjects here (and elsewhere!) are backlit trees, here combined with some low ridges and the swooping curves and textures of the wonderful red rock.

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

Backlit Trees and Sandstone, Afternoon

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Backlit Trees and Sandstone, Afternoon - Afternoon sun back-lights trees and brush in the sandstone high country of Zion National Park, Utah
Afternoon sun back-lights trees and brush in the sandstone high country of Zion National Park, Utah

Backlit Trees and Sandstone, Afternoon. Zion National Park, Utah. October 22, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Afternoon sun back-lights trees and brush in the sandstone high country of Zion Naitonal Park, Utah

I love this “sea of sandstone” country from the higher elevations of Zion National Park, especially early or late in the day when the low angle sun catches the tips of the needles and leaves of the trees and bushes. The rock formations have a combination of sculpted large features and rough and angular small features that I like as well.

Several times this year I had the opportunity to spend good portions of days along the Mount Carmel Highway through the park. Between the well-known tunnel and the east border of the park, the surroundings are filled with this sort of landscape: small canyons, deeply worn stream beds, knobs of stratified red sandstone, and trees and plants managing to grow anywhere they can get a bit of soil on this rocky terrain. As I travel this road it seems that juxtapositions of these components are constantly forming, sometimes so quickly that I don’t have time to stop. However, because I have been over this road quite a few times now, I’m beginning to understand a bit more where and when to look. The idea here was to line up a couple of almost parallel hill structures, each topped by backlit trees, against the backdrop of shadowed and stratified rock.

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

Lodgepole Forest and Lower Slopes of Mount Gibbs

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Lodgepole Forest and Lower Slopes of Mount Gibbs - Lodgepole forest trees and the lower slopes of Mount Gibbs are bathed in sunset light, Yosemite National Park
Lodgepole forest trees and the lower slopes of Mount Gibbs are bathed in sunset light, Yosemite National Park

Lodgepole Forest and Lower Slopes of Mount Gibbs. Yosemite National Park, California. September 13, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Lodgepole forest trees and the lower slopes of Mount Gibbs are bathed in sunset light, Yosemite National Park.

This was an evening of “interesting” (e.g. – tricky!) light that changed from moment to moment. The issue was that there were high clouds to the west of my position not too far from Tioga Pass. These clouds can cut both ways – on one hand they can be lit up in quite astonishing ways by the light at the end of the day and just after sunset, but they can also quite simply block the light from the west. When I see this situation in the Sierra, I often make a point of being where I can take advantage of the potential for a wild show of sky color, but I’m also aware that as often as not nothing will happen and the sun will simply slide behind the clouds. On this evening things were complicated. Earlier there was a wonderful atmospheric haze that became luminous in the back-light. However, as the sun dropped toward the horizon, at times it did pass right behind clouds that were thick enough to block its light and turn the world quite gray.

Eventually I figured out that light was going to be transitory and unpredictable on this evening, so I more or less settled into “opportunist” mode, ready to move quickly when a bit of light showed up in one place or another. With a somewhat long lens on the camera, I would wander around or just stand and watch. Then, almost without warning, something would light up – a tree over there, a ridge behind me, some clouds – and provide a momentary opportunity to make a photograph. At the point that I made this photograph, in subtle, rose-colored light, I had almost given up since the trees around me had fallen into shade. But a brief bit of sun came through a break in the clouds near the horizon and lit the nearby grove as the slopes of Mount Gibbs became pink in the end-of-day light.

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: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Sea Stacks and Coastal Bluffs, Northern California

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Sea Stacks and Coastal Bluffs, Northern California - Haze obscures sea stacks and bluffs along the rugged Pacific Ocean coastline of Northern California
Haze obscures sea stacks and bluffs along the rugged Pacific Ocean coastline of Northern California

Sea Stacks and Coastal Bluffs, Northern California. Mendocino Coast, California. October 30, 2011. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Haze obscures sea stacks and bluffs along the rugged Pacific Ocean coastline of Northern California.

I made this photograph almost a year ago, from just about the same location as a more recent photograph of this scene that I posted a month or so ago. The location is along the Mendocino County coastline of northern California, a rugged and beautiful section of the state. Here the coast highway travels very close to the water along high bluffs that overlook the Pacific, and this particular cove holds this two-peaked island or sea stack and is backed by receding coastal bluffs that extend out into the water. In the far distance the shoreline to the south curves gently back towards the west, creating a large and very shallow bay.

The personality of this land and seascape changes constantly. On a (rare) completely clear day, the view to the farther shoreline might be easier to make out, but on the many foggy days the foreground scene could well be completely obscured. On this morning, most of the fog had cleared back from the coast, leaving a softly hazy atmosphere that amplified the effects of distance, and the surf was creating low clouds of spray along the coastline.

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.