Tag Archives: landscape

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Hope Valley, Autumn — Five Photographs

November 23, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

This set of five photographs features scenes of autumn in Hope Valley in the California Sierra Nevada.

A colorful grove of autumn aspen trees, backed by pine forest, Hope Valley, California

A “wall of trees” photograph made in the evening at Hope Valley, California near the peak of the 2014 aspen color season.

Forest and meadows with fall color, Picketts Junction, Hope Valley

Fall meadow colors along the creek in Hope Valley, California near Picketts Junction were highway 88 and 89 meet.

Aspen color and pine forest, Hope Valley, California

Brilliant autumn aspen foliage in shades of yellow and orange in the upper portion of Hope Valley, just east of Carson Pass in the eastern Sierra Nevada.

Autumn forest including willow and aspen stretches up Hope Valley toward Carson Pass

A giant pine forest, intermixed with the autumn colors of aspen trees, extends across Sierra Nevada slopes toward Carson Pass.

A colorful grove of autumn aspen trees, backed by pine forest, Hope Valley, California

Photographed in evening light, the curving shape of a grove of autumn aspen trees with colors of green, yellow, and orange.

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: Photographers

Working the Red Rock Landscape

November 23, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A group of us assembled in the outback of southern Utah in October for a few days of landscape photography — and I was perhaps the odd man out as the person least familiar with Utah subjects. Not that I haven’t shot there before… I’ve actually spent perhaps a month and a half photographing in the state in the past few years, all told, and I’m becoming more and more familiar with the visual quality and the rhythms of the place. However, the others were mostly from the Southwest, and they have the same sorts of instincts for this land that I have for the Sierra.

We spent a few days in this red rock landscape of domes, hills, gulches, and canyons. On this evening we went to a location where red sandstone hills rise above the flatlands and stretch into the distance, and are filled with a seemingly infinite variety of textures and shapes and plant life. Here we stopped to photograph an old cottonwood snag in the middle of an expanse of sandstone.

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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

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

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

Trees and Redrock — Four Photographs

November 22, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

This is another multi-photograph post — in this one I share four photographs from the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument that feature trees in various back-country landscapes ranging from the canyons and rock formations to one otherwise perhaps un-notable stop near a campsite where I stayed.

Colorful autumn foliage on a cottonwood tree next to a creek at the bottom of a deep sandstone canyon

This stout cottonwood tree grows in the wash at the bottom of this deep canyon, at the base of huge sandstone walls that tower above and wrap around curves in the canyon’s path. I had stopped here to photograph a different tree — it is among those shared in this group — and after finishing with that tree I looked over here to see this one standing against the worn and curving rock shapes at the base of the canyon walls.

Fractured and sandstone canyon walls arch above a cottonwood tree with fall foliage

This is one of two photographs of this tree that I like. (The other is a in portrait orientation, and may give a better sense of the trees size and the relative scale of the huge sandstone canyon wall.) The tree grows in the bottom of the wash and right up against the canyon walls, with several arch shapes in the sandstone creating a sort of frame for it.

A solitary oak tree grows from a crack in Utah sandstone

This photograph comes with a bit of a personal story. In the morning we (a group of six photographers) had departed our camp on foot to hike down a nearby wash and drop into a deeper canyon. Although the morning began well, with a pleasant walk down the wash, followed by some exploration as we tried to find a good way to drop into the deeper canyon, I suddenly developed a knee problem — I decided to remain behind as the group went on. I walked back to camp, making photographs along the way, and then drove to some other places along our gravel road looking for other subjects. In the late afternoon I returned to camp, though no one else had yet returned. So I decided to do a bit of exploring near camp, and I ended up at the base of a sandstone face as the sun dipped behind mountains to the west — and I photographed this tree in the low light before heading back to camp.

A cottonwood snag in red rock country

On our first night together as a group in a back-country area of Utah we set up camp and then headed out to photograph something as the evening approached. We drove, ending up at a spot where large sandstone formations are backed by an even larger area of smooth sandstone surfaces, interrupted by potholes and other features. At one point we were in one of those locations where the number of obvious photographic subjects was limited — basically, there was a beautiful pothole with a true and there was this old snag. With six photographers, interesting questions arise. Do we all shoot the same subject? If one person shoots it first, is it OK for the next to photograph from the same angle? How could we each take this common subject and do something different with it? I initially resolved to not shoot this snag, but a bit later I came back and gave in to temptation! ;-)

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

Capitol Reef — Four Photographs

November 21, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Continuing with this week’s experiment in releasing multiple photographs in a single post, this set includes four photographs from Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park.

Hills and sandstone cliffs above the Fruita District in evening light, Capitol Reef National Park

On our first evening in Capitol Reef, where we stated at the campground at Fruita, we had this beautiful though momentary spectacular light late in the day, as the lowering sun managed to shine through openings in clouds to the west.

A gully begins to cut into the red rock surface of desert terrain

This was a tricky morning for photography. At dawn there was some beautiful light making its way through breaks in a developing cloud cover. However, shortly after dawn those clouds increased and began to turn the morning gray. Shooting can be a challenge in such light, though it works better for some subjects than others — it can help when the soft, filtered light fills in the shadows, and sometimes the subdued light can enhance the saturation of some colors. This small canyon is west of the main areas of Capitol Reef, where it cuts deeply into the tilting plateau areas.

We spent an evening exploring some of the washes and canyons along the west side of Capitol Reef National Park, and by the time we got deep into this canyon the light was coming from low in the sky, creating conditions of very soft light in the bottom of the canyon. Here a small tree stands in front of rocks with interesting shapes and hollows.

Brilliant yellow autumn cottonwood tree foliage against a red earth hill and gully

This photograph was also made on the cloudy morning mentioned above. When we first realized that we had lost the sun, we started out by heading straight to a nearby grove of cottonwood trees, whose colors can stand out nicely in such light. (In some ways, the colors can look better in this light, as the still glow but they don’t pick up the white highlights of direct sun.) The color palette here is quite varied, though not unexpected for this area — with the dark shape of the tree trunks, the bright yellow leaves, a few green leaves at the bottom of the trees, the dusty greens of the smaller plants, and the red/pink coloration of the gully.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: landscape

Hope Valley, Autumn — Five Photographs

Working the Red Rock Landscape

Trees and Redrock — Four Photographs

Capitol Reef — Four Photographs

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