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.