Tag Archives: intimate

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Granite, Water, and Tree

January 22, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A small tree growing in a crack in a granite wall above the reflecting surface of a Sierra Nevada lake, Kings Canyon National Park

I have begun to return to the photographs from the September 2013 9-day backcountry trip into the eastern Sierra of Kings Canyon National Park. Four photographers traveled over two nearly-12,000′ passes to reach a basin full of lakes at 11,000′, where we set up camp and photographed for the better part of a week. By staying in one location we were able to come to know the surrounding wilderness intimately, frequently returning to locations at different times of day and in different weather conditions. Of course, even a week in one valley like this one is not sufficient to truly know it – a lifetime might be necessary for that!

When I return from a shoot like this one I’m always anxious to dig into my photographs and see what I came back with. In the field, while I’m complete focused on each photograph as I make it, I quickly move on to the next thing, and after a week of shooting I certain do not recall every shot. The initial pass through the image files always reveals some photographs that speak to me, and others that seem to have potential. I might work them over for a week or two, but then I tend to put them aside and move on to other things. But I’m not done. Some photographs do not reveal themselves to me as quickly as others, and I’ve learned that when I go back to the original files months or even years later I often “discover” photographs that were there all along, but which somehow escaped my attention. This is one of those, though in this case I think I have some ideas about how it ended up waiting for me to revisit it months later. First, when I made the photograph I knew there was something about these patterns that was photographable – but at the time I recall being a bit challenged by making a composition out of it that did not include some distracting materials above the elements you see here. At the same time, another photograph of a similar subject turned out to be one of those that worked right away, and I think that encouraged me to move on past this one. This week I began to revisit these files and when I saw this one it was almost immediately obvious to me that it would work with his wider crop, which solved the problem of the “distracting materials” that I mentioned above. I like several things about this photograph: its subtle color palette, the strong abstract patterns of cracked rock and green-gray lichen, the very small tree growing in the crack in the rocks.

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: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Summer Grass, Receding Ridges

January 12, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Late summer dry grass in golden hour light with distant hills receding into the haze

I made this photograph on what we sometimes refer to around here as a “random ride,” on an evening when I wanted to photograph something but didn’t have time or inclination to get to some of the usual spots. I formed a vague plan to head up towards the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, above the Santa Clara Valley. I have a long history with Mount Hamilton. Since I was brought up in the Santa Clara Valley (now known to many as “Silicon Valley”), we used to head up this road when the occasional snow fell in the Diablo Range. Today they close the road when there is snow, but back then the authorities were less restrictive, and many families found their way up there to make snow men and have the rare snowball fights. Later, during a long period when I was a very serious bicyclist, I used to regularly do the 60 or so mile round trip from the valley to the summit and back, often as a morning ride. It is literally true to say that I know many of the twists and turns of this road like I know the back of my hand. As I drove up there on this evening I could still anticipate what the road would do a couple of blind turns beyond where I was.

I think I had a general idea of some photographs including oak trees and grass land, perhaps with evening vistas beyond. But as I drove it seemed like the right wasn’t quite right in most of the promising locations, and where the light was good the subjects didn’t appeal so much. But this turned out to be one of those trips on which I wasn’t anxious about whether or not I would get photographs, so I continued on and even explored a bit. In fact, when all ways said and done, I photographed exactly one subject – making several photographs of this bit of grassy ridge with the sunset light behind it on the receding hills.

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

Bare Tree, Redrock Cliff

December 26, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

A single bare tree stands against a massive sandstone cliff

This photograph had fallen by the wayside in the wake of a 2012 autumn photography trip to Utah with a group of friend. The three of us photographed mostly in various areas of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and also briefly hit Zion on the way to and from the main destinations. As happens all too frequently, after working my way through almost all the photographs from that trip other tasks intruded and I moved on. A week ago one of my shooting partners emailed me to ask if I had a photograph of him that he could use for a newsletter. I recalled that I had one of him set up next to a bit of sandstone wall along the Escalante River, and while looking for it I ended up going back through a set of RAW files shot that day.

Now, over a year later, my specific memory of this photograph is a bit fuzzy. I recall for sure that we spent the day – a cold and windy one – in a big canyon with steep sandstone walls and a meandering stream lined with cottonwood trees and other autumn vegetation, some of which had lost virtually all of its foliage. This tree was one of those almost bare ones, and growing up against the beautiful bit of sandstone cliff its form echoed that of a nearby crack in the rock.

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Utah

Sand and Cracked Mud

December 18, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cracked dry mud curling atop a bed of red sand, illuminated by reflected canyon light, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Dried and cracked mud is one of those strange subjects that seems to be almost irresistible for landscape photographers. Often the concept seems more interesting that the photograph turns out to be, but that rarely stops me from giving it a try. The specific location is entirely unimportant, but I photographed this somewhere in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah while exploring a canyon.

Pardon me while I become enthusiastic about… mud. ;-) These patterns are fairly common, forming where silt-laden water flowed during a rainstorm. Because here the sand is from Utah’s common red sandstone, everything in this images has some red quality to it. The silt itself is tinged pink, and the sand below, some of which ended up on top of the dry mud, is very red. In addition, because this specimen was deep down in a canyon, that beautiful southwest light that reflects off the upper canyon walls casts a lot of very warm colored light onto this little intimate landscape. In fact, without that wonderful light this scene would have little too offer and the coloration would probably be too subtle to work well.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: intimate

Granite, Water, and Tree

Summer Grass, Receding Ridges

Bare Tree, Redrock Cliff

Sand and Cracked Mud

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