Tag Archives: mesquite

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

Sand Dune Patterns

April 24, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sand dune patterns following a day of dust storms

Sometimes we flatter ourselves by saying that we make photographs. Indeed, there is truth to that — if there wasn’t something unique in each act of photographic creation everyone would produce photographs of equal interest. However, there is also a distinct element of simply finding things — I like to think of it as hunting. In a location such as the one where I found this subject, there is, for all practical purposes, an infinity of possible subjects — and they are not static, but very much the result to constantly evolving processes of light and wind and erosion and rain and more. We like to tell ourselves that the photographs are out creations, but if we are honest we must admit that there is a great deal in our subjects that is completely beyond our control.

I understand the periodic feeling that “there is nothing to photograph.” However, many times the opposite problem is the challenge — there are so many possible photographs and so many potential ways to approach each subject that it can be overwhelming. During perhaps an hour or a bit more on these dunes I was never without something to photograph, and there were moments the work seemed almost frantic as I spotted some effect of light and hurried to find a way to photograph it during the brief time before it was gone. These patterns were the result of dust storms and high winds over the past 24 hours or more. These conditions had piled sand up near the tops of dunes, and on the leeward side the sand had drifted downward, following patterns that seem more like those of a liquid than a solid. I happened to show up as the low angle evening light briefly passed from left to right across the surface of this texture, and working quickly I was able to make a few exposures before the light faded.

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: 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.

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

Creosote Bush, Sand, Mountains

April 20, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A lone creosote bush among sand dunes and desert mountains in evening light

A photograph of one small thing in the landscape may evoke clearer and more powerful memories of the experience of the place than a photograph that shows the whole scene. For me, this is one of those photographs. Unless you know the area quite well, you would be hard pressed to identify exactly where the photograph was made or precisely what we are seeing here beyond “creosote bush,” “sand dunes,” and “hazy, distant mountains.” And you could find a similar little scene in innumerable other locations. Perhaps this might let you, as its lets me, use this little scene as the starting point for recalling other things that comprise the experience of being in such a place.

During much of the year this desert is — no surprise! — an oppressively hot place, in many ways not at all friendly to human life. I often photograph very early and very late in the day, spending the hot and bright midday times traveling or in a place where I can escape that heat and intense light. In the afternoon I start to think about the time when the light will soften and the air will be less hot, and late in the day I head out to make photographs, often arriving at a location while it is still uncomfortably hot. I wander out into the terrain — though often with at least some vague plan — and before long comes that beautiful time of day: the wind slows and the temperature drops into the eighties, the sun’s light is muted by the atmosphere as it nears the horizon, and soon it drops behind desert mountains. The light becomes soft and there is little sound, yet I look with increasing urgency, knowing that this combination of air and light and color will only last briefly.

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

Sand Patterns

April 17, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sand patterns on the side of a sand dune following a wind storm

Like so many such places, Death Valley is a place of big, solid landscapes — but it is also a place of small and incredibly fleeting things. The landscape is constantly being reshaped and moved by wind and sometimes by water, and while the large-scale features change very slowly, the smaller features often are so transitory that they are gone almost as soon as they appear.

The sand dunes are, no surprise, one of the places of constant change. While the dunes, perhaps surprisingly, manage to maintain their general form over long periods of time, a closer look reveals things that change from day to day and even from moment to moment. During this visit to Death Valley I experienced several days of high winds and conditions that were often quite dusty, with dust storms in play for more than 24 hours. I ventured out onto these dunes near the end of a day that had begun with strong winds and blowing sand, and the conditions had only calmed down shortly before I walked out here. The patterns are on the lee side of a dune, where sand blown to the top of the dune on other side falls over the edge and out of the wind, forming intricate and intertwining patterns. For just a very brief moment in the evening the waning sunlight angled almost directly across the surface of these shapes, and moments after I made this exposure the light was gone.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: mesquite

Sand Dune Patterns

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Dunes in Shadow

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Creosote Bush, Sand, Mountains

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Sand Patterns

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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.