Tag Archives: layers

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley

Ranch, Fence, Morning Mist

January 7, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning mist rises above Long Valley ranch land

This is a favorite photography area for me. It isn’t far from the crowded eastern Sierra ski and resort town of Mammoth Lakes by the map, but it every other way it is pretty much a completely different world. In the fall, when conditions are right and mists rise out in these flatlands, I like to leave the Sierra behind and drive out here and explore.

The Long Valley area is the caldera of an ancient volcano, which erupted quite violently many hundreds of thousands of years ago, and which has been active at times since then. Today the visual evidence remains in the form of the large caldera itself (which becomes quite obvious after you look for it) and the many hot springs and even a hot creek out in the valley. On cold mornings fogs form out here, and mist and steam rise from the many sources of hot water. This was one of those foggy mornings, and looking over this ranch and directly into the sun, I saw a beautiful series of receding layers: foreground pasture and several steaming waterways, a fence, more fog beyond, more mist, and then a series of higher and higher hills and mountains.

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

Autumn Cottonwood, Red Rock Strata

November 29, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn cottonwood tree foliage backed by red rock strata

Yes, this is just a very colorful tree! We headed out early on this morning, not quite certain what we would photograph, but thinking that it would involve early morning light and not be too far from the Fruita campground at Capitol Reef National Park. We had some thoughts about perhaps photographing in a canyon, but since that is more of an activity for later, when the sun is higher, we did not start with that.

It was a cloudy morning, though initially — if my memory serves — it was the “interesting” sort of cloudiness that allows some sun to poke through the clouds and produce interesting and variable light. However, before long a large deck of high clouds moved in and killed that light. It was time to reevaluate our plans! Soft light can be fine light for some purposes. It may not always have the drama of early morning, low angle sunlit and broken clouds, but it can produce beautiful colors and bring light into what might otherwise be very dark shadows. We headed west from the Fruita district, eventually stopping for a variety of subjects, but this big, beautiful cottonwood tree standing against the slanting sandstone strata was hard to pass up.

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

A Story in Red Rock

November 28, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Broken rocks spread across a layer of sandstone in evening light

This is another photograph from my first evening on this trip in this particular part of Utah, from a day when I had met up with friends and traveled out to find a campsite where we would stay for the next few days — our base camp for exploring red rock and canyons and for sharing meals and conversation. After setting up camp and settling in, we headed out for our first evening of photography, and would up in a nearby landscape of sculpted sandstone.

We began shooting mostly together, finding and exploring some obvious and quite impressive subjects — each working on his or her own photographs but staying mostly in a group. Eventually we began to split up and wander off to do our own individual exploration. Later in the evening I ended up in an area of massive sandstone benches and ridges and potholes, and as the dusk came on and the light turned red/burgundy I was above a small sandstone canyon descending toward the sagebrush country below. This is a simple scene, but I like to think about a few secrets that it may reveal. It is easy to see such landscapes as being static, but the fact is that they are always changing, though mostly on a time scale that is much longer than that of our lives. But occasionally there are obvious clues, and here the clearest is the scattering of fractured rock that has failed from the seemingly solid face in the upper part of the scene, a hint about how it came to be that the lower flat surface runs into the upper wall.

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

Sandstone Patterns

July 3, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Complex patterns in sandstone formations at Zion National Park

I’m certainly no geologist, but that doesn’t keep me from being somewhat amazed by the fantastical and convoluted shapes and conjunctions in this little detail of cross-bedded sandstone photographed in the Zion National Park high country. As I understand it, these rocks originated in sand that was laid down, perhaps as dunes, in the distant past. For a variety of reasons, layers that originally tilted one direction ended up butted up against or nudging into layers tilting in radically different directions. My untrained eyes count a number of such layers in this small bit of rock. Overlaid on this are eroding flakes, cracks, bits of vegetation, lichen, and more – and all of it on this intensely colorful Southwest rock.

I am not certain precisely where this bit of geology was photographed, beyond recalling that it was along the Mount Carmel Highway through Zion National Park and that the photograph was made in shaded and diffused light. I am not only intrigued by the disjunct lines and angles of the underlying rock here, but also by odd features such as the big curve running across the middle of the frame and the subtle differences in the coloration of the rock – in places it is quite pink, verging on redness, while in others it is almost somewhat purple.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: layers

Ranch, Fence, Morning Mist

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Autumn Cottonwood, Red Rock Strata

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A Story in Red Rock

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Sandstone Patterns

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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.