Tag Archives: maple

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

Solitary Plant and Sculpted Rock

June 8, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A solitary box elder with autumn foliage grows at the bottom of a wash below water-sculpted rock walls, Zion National Park

Near the start of my late-October, 2012 photographic foray back to Utah with my friends Charlie and Karl, we spent a day – our first in Utah – mostly trying to “work” the various subjects along the Mount Carmel Highway across the high country of Zion National Park. This is, of course, a country full of all sorts of varied and interesting sedimentary rock layers that have been tilted and eroded in wonderful ways, and at this time of year the trees were beginning to take on fall colors.

At one point we dropped down from the road and wandered into a wash that first attracted our attention by means of the very brightly colored red maples. Once in the way, we started to investigate it a bit more, and we soon found a short slot canyon section where the walls were vertical and water had eroded these walls into curves and alcoves. This particular alcove seemed like it might be the site of an intermittent waterfall or seep, and this single tree was growing at its base just above the creek bed.

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

Box Elder with Sparse Leaves

June 5, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The last autumn leaves on a box elder tree against a dark wall of Escalante Canyon, Utah

On a very cold and somewhat cloudy day in late October we explored portions of the Escalante River in Utah. This was a tough day for shooting! Not only was it cold – it was trying to snow by the end of the day – but it was also very windy, making photography of cottonwood and box elder trees and other vegetation a real challenge.

In places the river twists and turns, first going one way and permitting sun down to the river, then abruptly turning in a share s-curve and heading back the other direction. Then, as they say, “lather, rinse, repeat.” The back and forth winding course of the river continues. As we passed through one of the sharp bends, beneath very tall cliffs and in deep shade, we had to wade across the river as it flowed next to this sandstone wall. Tucked up against the wall and growing from rocky ledges were several trees, including this one that still retained just a few autumn leaves.

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

Slot Canyon Tree

March 22, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A box elder tree stands against the vertical sandstone walls of a Utah slot canyon

Near the beginning of this late-October photographic trip in Utah, we visited a long canyon, slot-like in places, in the southern reaches of Utah in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Although I had been is small sections of little slot canyons before, this was actually the first time I ventured up a desert canyon like this one (with the exception of some in Death Vally) that had a creek running up the bottom, steep sandstone walls, and plenty of cottonwoods, box elders, and other typical plants. We started in a more or less flat area outside the canyon, waded up a section of the creek to enter the canyon, and spent the next few hours exploring and making photographs.

I have a thing about trees standing in front of rock walls, and among the mental images I was carrying as we went to the Southwest were several with that theme. I was actually thinking more about trees with fall colors, but in this particular canyon there was a still a lot of green foliage – and I liked the somewhat unusual combination of the leaves’ lime green and the pinkish, almost purple coloration of the rock in the soft reflected canyon light.

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

Maple Leaves, Cliff

February 23, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Yellow autumn maple leaves against a sandstone cliff face, Zion National Park.

When I think of Zion National Park, a few sorts of scenes come immediately to mind – red cliffs, curving and rounded patterns of colored sandstone… and trees against the sandstone walls. During my 2012 visits to the park I had ample opportunities to photograph the latter subject – new spring cottonwood growth against the rock in early April, maples in the park’s high country in early October, and then more maples in both the high and low areas near the end of the period.

I photographed these brilliant yellow leaves in the high country along the Mount Carmel highway, on one of my walks away from the road down into the bottom of the canyon where the rocks close in and these trees grow, tucked along the edge of waterways or into small areas up against the rocks. The colors of the trees in these often-quiet places range across almost the entire spectrum of fall color – from unchanged green leaves and some lime green leaves just beginning the transition, through red and orange to this this golden-yellow, and finally to the dull browns of fallen leaves.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: maple

Solitary Plant and Sculpted Rock

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Box Elder with Sparse Leaves

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Slot Canyon Tree

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Maple Leaves, Cliff

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

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