Tag Archives: light

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

Butte and Petrified Dunes, Arches National Park

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Butte and Petrified Dunes, Arches National Park - Morning light on buttes and petrified dunes, Arches National Park
Morning light on buttes and petrified dunes, Arches National Park

Butte and Petrified Dunes, Arches National Park. Arches National Park, Utah. October 10, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light on buttes and petrified dunes, Arches National Park

While I’m fascinated and amazed by the namesake arches in this park and by the monumental sandstone buttes, mesas, fins, canyons, towers, and more… I also find that the light and the atmosphere can produce some of the most interesting subjects in Arches National Park. Because this particular butte and the terrain beyond are seen from a spot that is also excellent for photographing certain other nearby subjects, especially in the early morning, this was not the first time that I photographed this scene – though the atmosphere and light were so different on the two main occasions that you might hardly see them as the same subjects at first.

After photographing some impressive nearby sandstone formations in early morning light, I watched as the sun rose high enough to slant its light across the tops of the low formations known as petrified dunes. This is one of several photographs I made there were largely “about” that light and those dune structures, though in both cases I used them as elements in a larger scene rather than the primary subject. Here the backlit morning haze was thick enough to almost render the furthest buttes in the upper right corner of the frame invisible. They are a good distance away, being on the far side of the canyon of the Colorado River, which is visible in front of the buttes. The large, close butte at the lower left posed a challenge as the “front” side was in shadow. (Though the challenge here was less than the last time when I shot here – on that occasion the backlight was so brilliant that I could keep almost no detail in the front of that butte.)

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

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

Aretes, Hoodoos, and Trees

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Aretes, Hoodoos, and Trees - Sunset light on sparse trees, hoodoos, and descending aretes at Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah
Sunset light on sparse trees, hoodoos, and descending aretes at Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah

Aretes, Hoodoos, and Trees. Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah. October 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sunset light on sparse trees, hoodoos, and descending aretes at Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah

Cedar Breaks National Monument is almost (but not quite!) a sort of “one trick pony” of a park, though it is quite a spectacular pony! The main draw is the steep and very colorful Bryce-like canyon that drops precipitously from a high ridge along which the park road runs. Below this ridge, beautiful pink layers are exposed, and they have been heavily weathered and eroded into ridges, canyons, steep cliffs, and hoodoo, dotted here and there with a few sparse trees. The canyon faces roughly west, to the late afternoon and evening light on these red rock formations can be quite stunning. (Meanwhile, above the drop-off, the land is entirely different, consisting of gently rolling highland forest mixed with meadows.)

On our first day in the area we got settled in to lodging at nearby Brian Head ski area – where rooms were available at really low rates since this was probably about as “off-season” as you can be! We had some time in the evening so we headed up the road out of Brian Head and were quickly inside the monument. There are quite a few viewpoints along this road, so we picked one. This photograph was in light softened by low clouds on the horizon that still allowed a bit of fading light to illuminate the canyon features from the right.

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: Central California, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Blue Geese, Red Sky

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Blue Geese, Red Sky
Blue Geese, Red Sky

Blue Geese, Red Sky. Central Valley, California. December 11, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Ross’s geese, blue in the fading light of the overhead evening sky, fly against the reds of a wild Central Valley sunset

Back in early December, 2012 we were out photographing migratory birds in California’s Central Valley, on a day that began with extremely thick tule fog, gradually transitioned to hazy sunshine, then was interrupted by the atmospheric muck of an incoming weather system, and ended with a surprising and astonishing sunset and post-sunset display of color. It seems that there must have been a gap between the clouds and the horizon somewhere far to our west, and as the sun dropped to the horizon the late and very red light shone up into the clouds, turning them blood-red (and, at times, pink and purple and orange and more.)

Right before this we had been parked near a very large flock of geese that were mostly grounded, but which would occasionally take off en masse and circle for a bit before settling back in, often quite close to where they started. I had been tracking and photographing them in the somewhat gloomy light, and when the brilliantly colorful sky arrived I was ready to try to take advantage of it. This created a challenge though, that is probably familiar to anyone who has photographed such a sky. It is very bright and (important to those shooting digital systems) very red – which means that it can be necessary to underexpose a bit to avoid seeing very strange things happen to the red channel in the image file. In addition, since I was shooting straight into this brilliant light here, the geese were backlit. So, in post I was faced with a couple of contradictory issues – I had to control the brightness of the sky while trying to regain a bit of detail on the bodies of the backlit and rather dark birds! About the “blue geese, red sky” title… Because the dimmer light falling on the portions of the geese facing me was largely diffused light from a non-colorful (e.g. – blue) part of the sky, their white feathers registered very much as blue.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Juniper Tree and Sandstone Cliffs, Evening

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Juniper Tree and Sandstone Cliffs, Evening - Soft evening light on a single juniper tree among boulders at the base of tall sandstone cliffs, Capitol Reef National Park
Soft evening light on a single juniper tree among boulders at the base of tall sandstone cliffs, Capitol Reef National Park

Juniper Tree and Sandstone Cliffs, Evening. Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. October 26, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Soft evening light on a single juniper tree among boulders at the base of tall sandstone cliffs, Capitol Reef National Park

This photograph was a serendipitous one that resulted from going to a somewhat unlikely place, and going there without a whole lot of enthusiasm, having only modest success at that place, and then while leaving happening to look up at the right moment and spot some very interesting and somewhat unusual post-sunset light. The plot began with an evening last-minute decision to go shoot “somewhere” in Capitol Reef, but without a specific objective in mind. We perhaps had some thoughts about shooting along the descent from Torrey, Utah toward the park boundary, but this is tricky late in the day due to the way the terrain slants up to the west, causing the sun to drop below the elevated horizon rather early and stealing the light from the foreground terrain.

When we passed the park boundary we still didn’t have a clear idea of what the evening’s “target” might be, so we drove slowly into the park, looking at many things but not seeing quite the photographic opportunities that might have caused us to stop. We finally decided to investigate a large canyon and drove to its entrance, parked, and walked in a ways. Because of the orientation of this canyon, the light here also left us rather soon. We made some photographs – a few of which might even turn out to be interesting – and then headed back out of the canyon. The way passed along the base of a very tall sandstone cliff formed from one of the thicker layers of sedimentary rock. Typically the rock would appear darker and redder, but the soft post-sunset light changed the tones to an almost pastel effect – and we both quickly decided to stop and do some shooting. This lone juniper trees was growing improbably in the middle of a pile of very large boulders that had fallen from the cliffs, and those cliffs were catching the late and soft light from the west.

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.