Tag Archives: intimate

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

Dunes, Before the Sun

May 29, 2016 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Sand dune shapes in soft light, Death Valley National Park

There are still a few more photographs to share from this year’s spring visit to Death Valley National Park back at the end of March. To answer the inevitable question, we arrived after the peak of the “super bloom” — but there were still flowers and there are always plenty of other things to see. We visited some familiar sites and sights, and we also investigated some areas that were new to us. (It is a big park — even though I’ve been going regularly for over 15 years there is still plenty of new thing stuff to see.)

On the last morning of our trip, after days featuring wind and dust storms and even rain, it appeared to be calm. I got up well before dawn — what else is new? — and headed to a nearby area of dunes. Rather than going to the “usual spot,” I drove on to a location that I had been thinking of for a while, parked, loaded up my pack full of camera gear, grabbed my tripod, and headed out the pre-dawn light across a playa, heading toward some low dunes. Twenty or thirty minutes later I arrived, still before sunrise, and I had some time to photograph in the beautiful soft pre-dawn light.

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

Sand and Shadow

April 25, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Patterns of light and shadow on desert sand dunes

This was just about the last photograph I made during this year’s spring photography trip to Death Valley National Park. Our plan was to get up and be on the road to the Los Angeles area in the morning, but I couldn’t resist one more early awakening, so I was up and down the road before sunrise, parking my vehicle a half hour away from a location I had been thinking about for some time. I headed out across the flats in the pre-dawn semi-darkness and hiked toward low dunes as the sky began to lighten. It was very quiet and the air was still as I arrived and climbed up onto low sand hills and dunes.

I was surprised to find the wind blowing stiffly in the dunes, and as I photographed the foot or so above the sand was filled with blowing sand, occasionally muting the otherwise distinct patterns of rippling sand. I began by photographing some longer views across ranks of dunes rising toward the east, but I gradually shifted my attention to closer and smaller subjects, looking for interesting patterns and conjunctions. This deep shadow fell across a low spot in the sand, and contrasted starkly with the higher dunes that were already in full sun, creating a sort of yin-yang pattern. A few more minutes of photography, and then I packed up, walked back the way I had come, returned to our lodgings, and soon we were on the road once again.

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

Exposed Playa, Dunes

April 23, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Old playa surface exposed among sand dunes

I recall being fascinated by these old (how old I do not know) bits of old playa surface that poke out from under shifting dunes in Death Valley from the first time I wandered in the sand dunes. Walking toward the dunes from the roadway, the route almost invariably passed among these features. (I usually try to step between or around them, as many of them are quite fragile.) Although they appear now in places where it seems very unlikely that we will find water, the cracked mud surface betrays the fact that it was here once.

This example was a bit of a surprise. We had photographed around the periphery of the dunes at sunrise, and then walked up the sand to photograph their textures, forms and colors. Mostly I look for juxtapositions of the curving shapes of dunes, and contrasts between sunlit and shadowed areas, especially where the wind has created fine rippling pattern. Wandering a bit further into the dunes I came over a sand ridge and saw a group of potential photographs, with this outcropping sticking out from under the sand at the bottom of a low spot surrounded by higher dunes.

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

Sea of Sand

April 20, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Overlapping sand dune patterns, morning

On the last day in Death Valley this spring we were planning to head off to the Los Angeles area in the morning, but I decided I wanted to photograph one more time before departing. Although I really wanted to sleep in, after many days of rising very early, I decided to get up early one more time and head back to the dunes alone for one final bit of photography. I headed out before dawn and arrived at a location I had been to before, parked the car, hoisted a backpack and tripod, and headed out across the playa toward a section of dunes where I was reasonably certain I would be able to photograph alone. The distances are always deceiving, and the playa walk took much more than the ten minutes one might guess that it would take if unfamiliar with these places. Eventually I came to the low dunes that I had been aiming for, and I began to look for places where I could make sand fill the frame.

The dunes are deceiving on other ways, too. You might imagine that they are on the march, being pushed along by winds. The wind does move sand — and it was blowing around my feet on this morning — but overall the dune forms are actually quite stable. Sometimes these active looking yet stable features make me think of a sort of stop motion ocean, with waves and crests and valley mostly frozen — a stopped landscape mirroring the active surface of water. The patterns here range from small (the little ripples in the foreground) to quite large (the overlapping crests marching into the distance.) I worked this scene and others like it for an hour, and then it was time to leave — a walk back across the playa back to my vehicle, and then the long drive out of the desert.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: intimate

Dunes, Before the Sun

Sand and Shadow

Exposed Playa, Dunes

Sea of Sand

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