Tag Archives: intimate

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

Dried Mud, Canyon Light

July 3, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dried canyon mud illuminated by reflected canyon light, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah

There are at least two stories in this photograph. The first one can be read directly from the materials, patterns, and colors of the photograph. The location is the bottom of a wash, a shallow canyon that is often dry but which may flood during rain. When water flows everything is rearranged. Sand settles to the bottom, a fine silt may lie on top, and eventually the layers dry in this warm climate. The dried silt contracts and splits then curls into odd shapes — here some of the silt has formed small tubes and all of it has rolled up and separated from the underlying red sand. On a sunny day like this one the light strikes canyon walls high above and bounce among them, picking up the color of the red rock and softening. The red light that suffuses the scene is contrasted by a slight bluish tint that comes from blue sky vaguely reflected on smoother parts of the dry silt.

The second story involves a group of a half-dozen photographers and friends. After a rather lazy morning of breakfast and coffee and conversation, we finally set off on foot down the wash that passed by our camp. As we walked the canyon narrowed and before long rocky walls began to rise on both sides — a common story in this terrain. Rounding a bend we caught sight of… dry mud. What happened next would probably perplex or amuse any non-photographers who might have happened by. In this grand landscape of towering walls and deep valleys, we spent the next half hour earnestly bent over tripods, carefully and repeatedly photographing… dried mud.

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, Photographs: Southern California

Sand Patterns

April 17, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sand patterns on the side of a sand dune following a wind storm

Like so many such places, Death Valley is a place of big, solid landscapes — but it is also a place of small and incredibly fleeting things. The landscape is constantly being reshaped and moved by wind and sometimes by water, and while the large-scale features change very slowly, the smaller features often are so transitory that they are gone almost as soon as they appear.

The sand dunes are, no surprise, one of the places of constant change. While the dunes, perhaps surprisingly, manage to maintain their general form over long periods of time, a closer look reveals things that change from day to day and even from moment to moment. During this visit to Death Valley I experienced several days of high winds and conditions that were often quite dusty, with dust storms in play for more than 24 hours. I ventured out onto these dunes near the end of a day that had begun with strong winds and blowing sand, and the conditions had only calmed down shortly before I walked out here. The patterns are on the lee side of a dune, where sand blown to the top of the dune on other side falls over the edge and out of the wind, forming intricate and intertwining patterns. For just a very brief moment in the evening the waning sunlight angled almost directly across the surface of these shapes, and moments after I made this exposure the light was gone.

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

Sand Patterns, Evening Light

April 9, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Low angle evening sun highlights the patterns of a Death Valley sand dune

On my second day in Death Valley National Park — my first full day of photography there on this trip — I made a long journey down into the southern reaches of the place, driving out on some less used back roads and getting into some places I had not visited before. Death Valley National Park is a huge landscape, and getting from place to place there can become quite a production, especially if you get off of the main paved roadways and get into the back-country on the many unpaved roads. In terms of absolute mileage it probably would not seem like I went all that far, but the actual driving time was many hours. I first headed up a canyon toward an abandoned ranch and mine area, then went far to the south and took an alternative route back to the north, using a long unpaved road though high desert country.

Late in the day I made it back to my basic but functional camp at Stovepipe Wells, took a short break, and decide that it might be good evening for some sand dune photography. The closest dunes to this area are iconic and are perhaps among the two or three best known sites in the park. I don’t necessarily avoid photographing that well-known view, but I’ve seen that so many times that these days I’m a lot more interested in looking for other subjects in the dunes. For the most part I pay almost no attention to the icon here, instead preferring to wander off into lower sections of the dunes. I walk slowly, following my instincts, watching to see what might appear. In the end it could be a large view across vast acreage of dunes, or it could be some tiny subject at my feet. There had been a big wind and dust storm during the past 24 hours, and I found lots of newly made patterns in the sand. I photographed this subject in evening light, when the low angle sun highlighted the patterns of newly made ripples in the sand.

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

Red Rock and Roots

April 2, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Long roots extend across Utah sandstone

This was a sort of casual photograph, made while wandering around near our backcountry camp in southern Utah. We arrived in the afternoon, set up camp, and had a bunch of time to kill — time to eat, make plans, hang out, hike, take a nap, and explore. I probably did a bit of all of those things, but eventually decided to take my smaller camera and wander off into the surrounding countryside.

Eventually I ended up ascending a sandstone hill, and from the top I had open views of the surrounding terrain. But the closer subjects were perhaps even more interesting — the curving shapes of the sandstone, the small hollows that were filled with red sand, the plants trying to eke out a living in this spare and rocky area. In several places I found plants that had sent roots or stems over great distances across bare rock, perhaps trying to find pockets of water or moist soil.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: intimate

Dried Mud, Canyon Light

Sand Patterns

Sand Patterns, Evening Light

Red Rock and Roots

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