Tag Archives: light

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

Dunes in Shadow

April 23, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sand dunes in the shadows of post-sunset light

You could be forgiven to thinking that the subject of sand dunes has been “done,” and even over-done. Nonetheless, it is hard to resist a walk into and among the dunes on a spring evening as the light diminishes at the end of the day. In a way, photographing dunes might almost a form of photographers’ recreation, and these areas are full on remarkably varied subjects that change constantly — as the wind rearranges them, as the light changes their color and the visibility of textures, and as the photographer looks at them from different angles.

On this evening I felt a bit more drawn to expanses of dune forms extending away from me for some distance. As a result I ended up with a number of photographs in which more or less horizontal shapes cut across the frame and are layered one behind the other. Earlier, when the color of the light was warmer, the dunes had a very different color — but once the direct sunlight was gone and shadows moved it the warm colors drained away and the blue tones of from the sky began to strengthen.

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

Wash and Eroded Hills

April 22, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light shines on eroded hills and a desert wash.

This was the final morning of my spring photographic excursion to Death Valley. On the last day of these visits I always seem to follow the same general ritual — I get up well before dawn (of course!) and visit one final photography location very early, then go back and break camp before leaving the park and starting the long drove back to the San Francisco Bay Area. This means that I almost always pick a familiar “sure thing” location for the last morning, and one that is not too far from wherever I camped the night before. I rarely make this a spur-of-the-moment decision, instead typically deciding ahead of time where I’ll go — there isn’t a lot of time to waste on this final, long day. On this trip I headed back to a little area not far from a familiar Death Valley icon. (I would stop at that icon, but only if the conditions turned out to be spectacularly unusual — I certainly don’t need another photograph of it otherwise, as beautiful as it is.)

I turned off the main road onto the gravel side road, slowed to a crawl, parked and got out with camera gear in hand, and quickly settled into the quiet and stillness of this place in the moments before dawn. Even though I have been to this spot many times, I’m still surprised by how quiet it is and by how few others go here. Although I know specific locations that might offer reliable and predictable photographs, once I’m here I prefer to take my time and look for and at things that I had not previously noticed. At first — and it was the case on this morning — it seems like there is little special to see, and I may momentarily wonder if I’m going to be able to find photographs. But as I slow down and begin to see, I invariably find things that I would have missed if I had not given the place some time. This photograph was the result of spotting a little path up to a higher spot — the path itself intrigued me so I followed it, and I was happy to find that it overlooked this little bit of classic Death Valley geography.

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

Dunes and Mountains, Evening Shadows

April 15, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening light on sand dunes, Death Valley National Park

I can photograph dunes at any time of day, but for me the evening hours are the most interesting. The scene goes through a sequence of transformations that fascinate me, even on evenings when I wonder if the magic will be there. IN Death Valley, during all but the coolest times of the year, the dunes can be hot places with stark light and washed out colors in the late afternoon — yet even this kind of scene has photographic potential. But soon the sun drops toward the horizon, the color of the light warms, and the shadows lengthen, revealing the textures of the dunes that are hidden in brighter light. As the sun sets the show continues but transforms again as the light takes on a blue tint (from open sky) and fills the shadows, now revealing colors that are not seen in the daylight.

This whole transition occurs relatively quickly, perhaps over the course of an hour and a half or less, and I often feel like I have to work somewhat quickly. This photograph comes from a point in time when direct sun was still on the dunes, though it was muted by haze from earlier sand storms on this evening. The light catches the higher parts of the dunes and gives them a warm color, but the lower areas have already fallen into shadow and have taken on the blue tones of light from the open sky.

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

Dunes and Mountains

April 10, 2015 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Low dunes and the base of Tucki Mountain in evening light

At the end of my first full day photographing Death Valley this spring I headed out onto the nearby sand dunes to look for whatever might show up in the evening light. I was close to one of the most iconic dunes in the park, but I found an out-of-the-way spot far enough away from that landmark that I had this area of the dunes completely to myself. Interesting things happen to the light and colors on the sand dunes during the short period of time leading up to sunset and for a short time afterwards. The dunes pick up low angle light that makes the textures of the dunes more visible and the light changes colors — first going toward warmer colors before the sunset, and gradually transitioning toward softer and more blue tones shortly after the sun goes down.

At first I wandered straight out into the dunes — well, perhaps not quite straight, as I tend to follow my instincts and an observer might think that my path looked a bit aimless. At one point I found some higher dunes from which I could see a bit farther of toward the northeast and from which I could look down on the complex patterns of the sand. After photographing there I turned back toward the direction from which I had come, and I saw this section of lower dunes dropping toward the edge of the sand, with the background of the lower folds of Tucki Mountain in late light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: light

Dunes in Shadow

Wash and Eroded Hills

Dunes and Mountains, Evening Shadows

Dunes and Mountains

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