Tag Archives: light

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

Young Trees, Zion Canyon

Image Leave a comment
Young Trees, Zion Canyon
Slender young trees growing at the base of the sandstone cliffs in Zion Canyon.

Young Trees, Zion Canyon. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Slender young trees growing at the base of the sandstone cliffs in Zion Canyon.

The biggest and oldest cottonwood trees are some of the most impressive specimens in these canyons. They often tower high above their surroundings, and for this reason can be photographed against cliff faces or sky without interference from other plants. They fill sections of canyon bottoms throughout the Southwest and, for that matter, they are found in an amazing range of places in the west, from near desert locations to the flatlands of California’s Central Valley. However, their dominance of the plantscape can sometimes distract from other worthy subjects that do not shout their presence quite so loudly.

These young trees in Zion Canyon have a kind of grace and fragility that contrasts with the solid mass of those bigger cottonwoods. The branches of these trees are slender and they move in the breeze. (Which, by the way, adds a particular challenge to photographing them in very low light.) The soft canyon light reflecting down from far above almost makes them luminous.

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.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

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

Cliff Edge in Sunlight

Image Leave a comment
Cliff Edge in Sunlight
Sun shines on the sharp edge of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park.

Cliff Edge in Sunlight. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

DescrSun shines on the sharp edge of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park.iption

Many years ago I was on a two-week backpacking trip through a long section of the Southern Sierra Nevada, covering some of the highest portions of the range on foot. The hike took me across a series of very high passes that were close to 12,000′ hight. In other words, I spent a lot of time in some very rugged and alpine places. I distinctly recall pausing on one of the higher passes to look around and realizing that the entire visible landscape consisted of rock and snow, with not a bit of forest visible to me. That vision of such a raw landscape stuck with me, and I’m always on the look out for such things.

While Zion Canyon is certainly not a place without forests and trees and rivers and lots of other comfortable things, it is possible to find a few ways of viewing this country that reinforce how much of its landscape is built on rock, in this case layers of sedimentary rock laid down, transformed, twisted and tilted over the millennia. This photograph catches the sun-lit edge of a closer buttress (yes, with a few plants!) juxtaposed with another more distant wall in shadow.

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.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Junipers, Sierra Crest Before Sunrise

Image Leave a comment
Junipers, Sierra Crest Before Sunrise
Soft pre-sunrise light on a pair of junipers and the peaks of the Sierra crest, topped by Mount Humphreys.

Junipers, Sierra Crest Before Sunrise. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Soft pre-sunrise light on a pair of junipers and the peaks of the Sierra crest, topped by Mount Humphreys.

The Sierra Nevada has many faces, and the east and west sides almost look like two different ranges. The west side is approached via the flat, agricultural Great Central Valley, and it begins with almost imperceptible hills that gradually rise to foothills, then to forested mountains, and many miles later finally culminate in high, rocky peaks and ridges. The personality of the east side is entirely different. You regard it from what is essentially high desert, hot and dry country, and in many place the entire upward thrust of the eastern escarpment is visible at once, rising as much as 10,000 feet from valley to peaks.

I made this photography early on an autumn morning, from a place high on the gigantic hills rising toward the eastern face of the range. In the foreground are a couple of juniper trees, one of the common trees of the dry Southwest terrain. Further above, open and sparse forest dot the rising slopes. Above it all are the high, alpine peaks of the Sierra crest, here topped by the recognizable profile of Mount Humphreys.

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.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Bluffs and Mist, Morning Light

Image Leave a comment
Bluffs and Mist, Morning Light
Coastal bluffs, morning fog and mist along the Big Sur coast.

Bluffs and Mist, Morning Light. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Coastal bluffs, morning fog and mist along the Big Sur coast.

Photographing along the Big Sur Coast in the early morning presents some challenges and some special opportunities. The challenge is straightforward — in almost all locations there are mountains to your east that block the morning light. This means that you won’t see the earliest eastern sunrise sky at all, and that the landscape is frequently all or partly in shadow. But one of the opportunities comes from the same source — light arriving along the coast just as the sun clears these obstructions often passes through narrow clefts and valleys, and when the air is full of fog and mist this can create a plethora of light beams.

Those beams are what I saw in this scene. The process of finding the composition here is one that I use a lot. I stopped at a familiar location that presents a very large and panoramic landscape featuring a famous icon. My first instinct was to photograph anything but that icon, so I framed a composition that took in a section of coast and surf running away from me to the south. After I made a few exposures of that subject, each of which tried to capture a different state of the surf, I became interested in the bluff at the far end of the scene. So I went with a very long focal length and honed in on this small part of the larger landscape, focusing on the beautiful shaft of light between the bluffs that lit up the fog and spray and highlighted sections of the surf.

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.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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