Tag Archives: juniper

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

Cliffs, Morning Light

May 11, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Immense cliffs in the Pine Creek Canyon area of Zion National Park.

This was an interesting morning, as much for its place in the sequence of events on this trip to photograph in Utah as for the actual photographic opportunities. I have noticed, and other photographers I’ve spoken with about this seem to agree to at least some extent, that there is sometimes a sort of “getting up to speed” element to certain types of shooting when you are getting started. I recall mentioning this to one photographer friend in the context of a discussion about the idea that you should always have a clear vision for your photograph before you make it – a theoretical concept that most photographers I know acknowledge to be unrealistic and perhaps even a bad idea. (This is not to say that thinking about what your “capture” may look like as a photograph is unimportant, but rather an acknowledgement that things are often more complex than the simplistic notion suggests and that sometimes we, quite honestly, don’t really know for sure which images will work or why.) When the idea of waiting for a really good image before making a photograph came up, I shared the observation that I sometimes have to “prime the pump” but simply starting to make some photographs, even if I’m not convinced that the first ones will be great. (One friend then referred to this as “photographic foreplay.” ;-)

The previous day we had driven to St. George, Utah from the San Francisco Bay Area – a LONG drive – and finally stumbled into a motel in St. George close to midnight. (As I recall, the motel advertised something like “The Cheapest Rooms in St. George!”) Up in the morning for precisely the free breakfast that you might expect in such a place – I resisted and instead walked across the street to a Starbucks – we left early and headed into Zion. As I recall we did not spend much, if any, time in Zion Canyon, and we were soon heading up the Mount Carmel highway, still having made no photographs. Finally, as we turned a few switchbacks on the initial climb, we saw some interesting light on the cliffs across the canyon, pulled over, got our cameras and lenses and tripods and made some photographs. I’m not sure that any of them were exactly remarkable, but with this first “shoot” (priming the pump) our work was now underway.

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

Juniper Tree, Towers at Base of Sandstone Cliff, Evening

April 1, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

I made this photograph midway through a trip of about 11 days that took us to a number of locations in Utah. Every such trip seems to have a sort of arc that includes the initial excitement and expectation of heading out into the world to photograph, a settling in period, perhaps a lull in the middle followed by a reconnection to the work, a sense that the trip is ending and there is too much left to do, and the final trip back to the “real world.” This photograph was made near the end of the “lull,” and might have marked the transition back to rededication to the work. On this mid-trip day, we had found ourselves perhaps a bit without direction and one of the members of the group had not been feeling well. At a low point in our energy but perhaps feeling that we should at least carry on and act like we were working, we went to a nearby area of the park in the evening.

At first we had no clear goal in mind, though we sort of stopped and looked around at a few spots, but without really making any serious photographs. Eventually we headed up into a large canyon, first photographing the walls near the start of the canyon and then photographing the canyon itself a bit as the light began to fade. This work went OK, but it didn’t seem to be quite “clicking.” But eventually, in my experience, you get to the point where you sometimes simply accept this as part of the work, trusting that if you keep looking and keep seeing you will eventually find what you are looking for – and that this is far more productive and useful than packing it up when it isn’t working. (Though, to be fair, there are a few times when packing it up and going and having a nice dinner can be a reasonable option!) In any case, we loaded up the vehicle and began to drive back out of the canyon. Looking up at the surrounding canyon walls, we were surprised to find some very unusual post-sunset light. During normal light these canyon walls look very dark and have the intensely “red” quality of the iconic Utah sandstone. But somehow this light seemed to have drained the color from the rocks, creating a de-saturated and almost slightly metallic effect. We quickly stopped an piled out with cameras and tripods and began shooting, and it seemed to me that the connection had been made once again.

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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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

Utah Juniper, Sandstone Cliff

March 1, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A single Utah juniper tree in front of a sandstone cliff, Capitol Reef National Park

Shooting in this area of Capitol Reef National Park was a bit of a late-day whim. There had a been a bit of a slowing down of the photography earlier that day, and we almost felt a bit obligated to get out and do more photography in the evening. Hey, it happens! Feeling a bit less than inspired and with no specific goal in mind, we headed over to Capitol Reef and looked around, at first perhaps without a lot of enthusiasm. If you are a typical photographer, you have probably had such a day – the light doesn’t seem great, there are unfixable challenges with the location, and you just aren’t “seeing” it.

Eventually I thought it would at least be worthwhile to head up into a nearby canyon that I had visited before. We got out and prepared to walk up the canyon a ways. Before we did so, I saws this tree at the top of gravel hill at the base of the vertical sandstone cliffs and recalled that I had been interested in it when I have visited this spot once before. By now it was pretty late in the day, and the light shining through the thin overcast was bouncing off of canyon walls behind me and gently reflecting towards the wall behind this tree.

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

Butte and Petrified Dunes, Arches National Park

December 30, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light on buttes and petrified dunes, Arches National Park

While I’m fascinated and amazed by the namesake arches in this park and by the monumental sandstone buttes, mesas, fins, canyons, towers, and more… I also find that the light and the atmosphere can produce some of the most interesting subjects in Arches National Park. Because this particular butte and the terrain beyond are seen from a spot that is also excellent for photographing certain other nearby subjects, especially in the early morning, this was not the first time that I photographed this scene – though the atmosphere and light were so different on the two main occasions that you might hardly see them as the same subjects at first.

After photographing some impressive nearby sandstone formations in early morning light, I watched as the sun rose high enough to slant its light across the tops of the low formations known as petrified dunes. This is one of several photographs I made there were largely “about” that light and those dune structures, though in both cases I used them as elements in a larger scene rather than the primary subject. Here the backlit morning haze was thick enough to almost render the furthest buttes in the upper right corner of the frame invisible. They are a good distance away, being on the far side of the canyon of the Colorado River, which is visible in front of the buttes. The large, close butte at the lower left posed a challenge as the “front” side was in shadow. (Though the challenge here was less than the last time when I shot here – on that occasion the backlight was so brilliant that I could keep almost no detail in the front of that butte.)

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: juniper

Cliffs, Morning Light

Juniper Tree, Towers at Base of Sandstone Cliff, Evening

Utah Juniper, Sandstone Cliff

Butte and Petrified Dunes, Arches National Park

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