Tag Archives: layers

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

Desert Ridges, Morning Haze II

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Desert Ridges, Morning Haze II
Desert ridges disappear into distant morning haze.

Desert Ridges, Morning Haze II. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Desert ridges disappear into distant morning haze.

While the light of the very early morning and the very late afternoon is the most obviously appealing, there are ways to photograph at almost any time of the day. Because the distances in the Death Valley landscape are often so immense, there is almost always some amount of haze in the air. Not only does it obscure distant features, but it also shifts the color balance toward blue. In all honestly, sometimes this doesn’t make for the most appealing landscape photography, especially when distant features are included. But it is also possible to make the blue haze your friend, especially where it can enhance the sense of distance and scale.

I had finished up my sunrise photography at a different location on this morning of my early 2022 visit to Death Valley. My daily routine is usually to bet up very early — well before sunrise — and head to a first location, arriving well before the good light appears. You may have noticed that I didn’t mention things like coffee. Or breakfast. I usually skip them and get right to work. Later, after finishing with that first subject of the day, it would be easy to give in to the call of breakfast, but I usually continue on to a second location that holds some promise in later light. So on this morning I headed up into the hills to find a spot with a broad, long-distance view. From here I photographed across rows of intervening ridges as the haze gradually hid the landscape details to the point that haze and light and land merged in the distance.

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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Layers, Sunset Dunes

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Layers, Sunset Dunes
layers of desert sand dune formations in the last sunset light of the day.

Layers, Sunset Dunes. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Layers of desert sand dune formations in the last sunset light of the day.

When photographing dunes that are new to me, I have little to go on when I first venture into them. I typically start walking toward them when the light is still somewhat flat and harsh, or before dawn when it is dark. It is difficult to imagine the details of how the light will evolve. I make some guesses based on the direction of the sun, how I think distant ridges may affect the arrival of shadows, and what I can see of the dunes’ features in the less-than-ideal light. In the end, I’m almost always surprised by how these first visits play out.

I approached these dunes in the late afternoon in preparation for sunset and evening light. I picked out a destination along the base of a particular dune where I saw some potentially interesting plants. Because the ridges to the west are quite low here, I guessed that I’d have a bit longer period of colorful light and longer shadows later on. Initially I walked past the location of this photograph because the textures of the successive ridges had little contrast in the daytime light. Later, as I finished photographing other nearby features that fell into shadow, I happened to look back in this direction, where the very last bit of colorful light was now delineating these shapes as evening shadows approached.

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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Desert Ridges, Morning Haze

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Desert Ridges, Morning Haze
Desert ridges disappear into distant morning haze.

Desert Ridges, Morning Haze. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Desert ridges disappear into distant morning haze.

There is a series of lessons I have learned about photography in Death Valley National Park. They including things like seasonal timing, observations about the light at various times of day, the number of locations and subjects that are a bit off the beaten track, and the importance of spending time “poking around” looking for them. One important element sits at the nexus between the immense scale of the place and the qualities of its atmosphere and light: learning to love blue haze in the atmosphere.

As a photographer who has done a lot of work in places where clear air is common — for example, among high peaks of the Sierra Nevada — the bluish haze that is often visible across the immense distances of Death Valley was initially a challenge. (It still can be at times.) Dealing with this required me to learn some lessons about timing… and that I learn to see the haze as a potential asset rather than just a problem. On this morning I had finished photographing a location in the clear sunrise light. I headed to a elevated location with broader views… and lots of the blue haze obscuring distant features. The intent of this photograph was to work with rather than against that condition, and let it help reveal the scale of the landscape.

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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Color Layers

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Autumn Color Layers
Layers of autumn color from aspen groves ascending an eastern Sierra Nevada slope.

Autumn Color Layers. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Layers of autumn color from aspen groves ascending an eastern Sierra Nevada slope.

This is one of those “rediscovered” photographs that I had originally left behind a couple of years ago. I found it again during the last few months while doing a review of some older raw files. I originally made several exposures of this group of trees with autumn foliage in the eastern Sierra Nevada, and I initially went with something framed a bit differently and using the landscape (horizontal) format. But coming back to the set of images, I noticed that layered effect of these trees and thought it might be a worthy photograph, too.

This grove is somewhat characteristic of the sorts of aspen trees we find in the Sierra Nevada. As friends often remind me (usually after retiring from visits to these other places), in places like Colorado and Utah and similar locations you can find seemingly endless groves of tall, thick, and straight trees. That’s quite rare here in my state. It isn’t impossible to find large groves, nor is it impossible to find thick and tall trees — but that’s not the most common situation. Often the trees are smaller and with distinct “personalities” — which is another way of saying that they many be twisted in interesting ways rather than straight and tall. But in this grove, we get a bit of (almost) everything. Behind that first line of small trees, which are likely encroaching on the foreground meadow, there is a grove of tall aspens. Beyond that, as the slope becomes steeper and more rocky, the trees once again begin to have that… “personality.”

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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.