Tag Archives: last

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

Box Elder with Sparse Leaves

June 5, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The last autumn leaves on a box elder tree against a dark wall of Escalante Canyon, Utah

On a very cold and somewhat cloudy day in late October we explored portions of the Escalante River in Utah. This was a tough day for shooting! Not only was it cold – it was trying to snow by the end of the day – but it was also very windy, making photography of cottonwood and box elder trees and other vegetation a real challenge.

In places the river twists and turns, first going one way and permitting sun down to the river, then abruptly turning in a share s-curve and heading back the other direction. Then, as they say, “lather, rinse, repeat.” The back and forth winding course of the river continues. As we passed through one of the sharp bends, beneath very tall cliffs and in deep shade, we had to wade across the river as it flowed next to this sandstone wall. Tucked up against the wall and growing from rocky ledges were several trees, including this one that still retained just a few autumn leaves.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: San Francisco

Tree and Pinnacle, Pacific Sunset

September 6, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The last evening light falls on a tree and a rocky pinnacle high above the Pacific Ocean north of San Francisco, California.

On the return drive from our late-August sojourn to the Mendocino Coast, we returned to the Bay Area by the less efficient but more spectacular route and drove the coast on Highway 1, the “coast highway.” For the most part the road hugs the coastline, alternately dipping down to the shoreline and climbing to the tops of very tall coastal bluffs, and occasionally running inland for a short distance. We stopped in Point Reyes Station for dinner (and we can now heartily recommend Osteria Stellina!) and then continued on – and as we did I began to get a sense of where we might be for the golden hour light. It seemed like we would likely pass Stinson Beach – which seemed fine, since I didn’t have an interest in photographing there – and be somewhere south of there in the Marin Headlands.

As we ascended the high and steep road perched along the cliffs south of Stinson Beach, a lot of stuff started happening all at once. I knew that we were getting very close to “that” light, when we spotted a lone coyote along a ridge above the road… right below a large ridgeline rock and above which the nearly full moon had just appeared. Really! So we obviously had to stop and see what we could do with that subject – which turned out to be more difficult that I had thought. At about this time other likely “targets” started to appear, and I photographed back towards Stinson Beach, directly into the sun-lit haze from northern California forest fires. Then I looked closer to my location and saw this windswept tree catching the last bit of light, with a single rugged pinnacle behind it, and beyond that the surface of the Pacific Ocean, fading into the mist and picking up the pink tones of the setting sun.

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

Turk’s Head, Green River, Evening Haze

June 2, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Green River curves past Turk’s Head in evening haze, Canyonlands National Park, Utah.

Just to the west of the “Island in the Sky” area of Canyonlands National Park, the Green River flows though deep and rugged canyons on its way to the confluence with the Colorado River. The river and its tributary streams have cut thousands of feet down through the layers of rock, exposing plateaus and steep canyon walls and more sandstone than can be believed. At Turks’ Head the river winds through a very large S-curve that widens the lower part of the canyon.

I had begun shooting the evening light at the Green River Overlook somewhat earlier on this evening, and by the time I made this photograph the direct light was almost gone – a bit of it is still hitting the cliff faces at lower left and glancing across the tops of nearby flat areas. It was a rather hazy evening, which is part of what attracted me to this spot – I love shooting into or across back-lit haze which can almost glow in the right light and which can also enhance the sense of distance in the scene. Of course, most of the “glow” was gone by this time, and the result is something a lot more subtle with the most distant terrain above the far end of a tributary canyon almost disappearing into the distant haze.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Eureka Dunes and Last Chance Range, Morning

February 7, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light on the Eureka Dunes and the hills of the Last Chance Range, Death Valley National Park.

While I love – who doesn’t? – the golden hour light on the desert dunes and hills and valleys, I also like to seek out the subtler and more “atmospheric” effects that are often frequently seen in this terrain. I had spent the (very cold!) night alone out here in Eureka Valley. I woke up fairly early, though with the sun having to rise past the ridge of the Last Chance Range, the light did not come early. I soon packed up my camp – which largely meant rearranging stuff in my vehicle – and before long started the drive out toward Lone Pine and my trip back home over Tioga Pass.

But first I planned to stop just a ways away from the camping area so that I could use a long lens to photograph the dunes against the background of the higher surrounding peaks. By the time I did this it was after 9:00 a.m. and the early morning golden hour light was long gone, replaced by the soft and hazy bluish light that is more typical during daylight hours. However, the sun was still low enough to glance across the dunes at a fairly low angle and to backlight the dunes and the mountains behind them. The idea here was to juxtapose some of the different textures, lines, curves, and angles of this landscape – the curving forms of the dunes near the bottom of the frame, the sharply delineated sunlit ridges of the upper dunes, the faint view of jagged and stratified rocks in the low peaks beyond them, the further ridge inclining the opposite direction from the dunes, and the much fainter texture of the huge valley in the distance.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: last

Box Elder with Sparse Leaves

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Tree and Pinnacle, Pacific Sunset

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Turk’s Head, Green River, Evening Haze

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Eureka Dunes and Last Chance Range, Morning

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

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