Tag Archives: ledge

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

Sandstone, Cliff-Dwelling Plants

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Sandstone, Cliff-Dwelling Plants - A few plants grow in cracks in the face of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park, Utah
A few plants grow in cracks in the face of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park, Utah

Sandstone, Cliff-Dwelling Plants. Zion National Park, Utah. April 3, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A few plants grow in cracks in the face of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park, Utah.

This is most certainly not an “icon” photograph of Zion! It is essentially a nondescript little bit of high country sandstone with a few plants, photographed along the Mount Carmel highway through the park in a spot where a shadowed cliff face was washed with light reflected from another rocky face behind me and on the opposite side of a narrow section of the canyon. This softer and more diffused light filled the shadowed areas yet was warmer in color than the very early- and late-day light that can also be as soft.

I’m used to seeing these examples of desert plants that seem barely alive, consisting largely of tough and dry branches and often not having much green at all. I see such things a lot, for example, when I photograph in Death Valley or in some of the high desert areas east of the Sierra. What was new to me here was the juxtaposition of these dry country plants with the rich, warm tones of the southwest sandstone.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Forest and Granite

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Forest and Granite
Forest and Granite

Forest and Granite. Yosemite National Park, California. September 16, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Forest trees ascend a slope filled with small granite domes and ledges, Yosemite National Park.

This little scene could probably be found in a few thousand locations in the Sierra if you were to keep your eyes open while wandering about. The combination of glacially-smoothed, rounded granite formations, a bit of meadowy grass, and groves of pines is a distinctly “Yosemite” sight for me.

I photographed these trees in a location not far from the Tuolumne River where a side canyon comes down from above to join it. From a somewhat open position along one side of this valley I was able to shoot across the valley with a slightly long lens and compress the distance a bit and pick out a series of granite diagonals interrupted and hidden by the back-lit trees.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Trees and Granite Cliffs

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Trees and Granite Cliffs
Trees and Granite Cliffs

Trees and Granite Cliffs. Yosemite National Park, California. September 15, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trees ascend rocky slopes to the base of steep granite cliffs, Tuolumne River Canyon, Yosemite National Park.

There are still a few more photographs to be found among those I made during my weeklong mid-September backpack into the Yosemite back-country. I spent several days photographing in the Glen Aulin area and this is one more of the photographs from that area. In the evening the sun sets down canyon from Glen Aulin, and we had travelled to a spot where we could see down into the upper reaches of the canyon as the sun set. While I was photographing some closer subjects, I looked up and saw the light from the west back- and side-lighting trees at the upper edge of the forest before it gives way to steep granite cliffs.

One of the great pleasures of this trip was having the opportunity to spend a number of days in each location. We spent three days in this area at the start of the trip and I had the better part of two additional days on the way back to my car. In many cases, I might initially wonder how I could possibly spend that many days shooting one small area within walking distance of my camp. But many days later I had discovered more and more potential subjects… and I almost felt like I was running out of necessary time!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Trees and Granite Cliffs, Evening Light

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Trees and Granite Cliffs, Evening Light
Trees and Granite Cliffs, Evening Light

Trees and Granite Cliffs, Evening Light. Yosemite National Park, California. September 15, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening sun backlights trees ascending granite slopes in front of cliffs, Yosemite National Park.

This is very similar to a photograph I posted very soon after returning from this trip about a week ago – the previous one was a portrait orientation variation on this landscape orientation version. The beautiful conjunction of trees, granite, and evening light occurred along the Tuolumne River in an area not far from where the river leaves is wide and relatively flat and peaceful path through sub-alpine meadows and enters a canyon that gradually becomes steeper and deeper as it leads to the unfortunate obscenity of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. (I visited that location this summer for the first time in many year, and I found it to be the saddest place that I can ever recall visiting in the National Park System.)

But to leave that gloom and doom behind, this portion of the Tuolumne is spectacularly beautiful! Here the river begins to flow quickly and sometimes wildly across granite slabs, sometimes pausing to flow serenely in more level sections. As I was photographing other more intimate subjects above the river I happened to look up and see this beautiful late afternoon back-light shining through the trees that climbed up towards these folded granite ridges, with the haze-obscured vertical cliffs beyond.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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