Tag Archives: monument

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.

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

Cottonwood, Fallen Monolith, and Cliff

May 20, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sunlight reflected from nearby canyon walls illuminates an autumn cottonwood tree in front of a fallen sandstone monolith and vertical cliff face.

I may be repeating a story I’ve previously told, but here goes. Earlier during my late-October visit to Utah we had wandered into this area, only to be largely stymied by clouds, cold, absurdly strong winds, and even a bit of rain. It was a bit disappointing, in that we had really looked forward to visiting this portion of the Escalante River, and when we started out in the early morning and saw a lot of beautiful fall color we thought we were in for a good day of shooting. Although that day was not a complete loss, it wasn’t what we hoped for – and by the end of the day we were struggling against very strong winds and cold.

Fortunately, nearly a week later we found ourselves back in roughly the same area of Utah, and as we considered the next day’s possible shooting locations the idea of giving this spot a second try came up. After considering that alternatives of trying a new location or going back, we decided to go back. It was a good decision! Where the first visit had been cold, cloudy, windy and even a bit damp, the second visit brought warmer conditions, almost completely clear skies… and most important, nearly windless conditions. (At one point we were cautiously admitting to one another that we had made exposures of foliage that lasted as long as a couple of seconds!) Near one large bend in the canyon there was a spectacular abundance of “targets” – brilliant cottonwood and box elder trees, beautiful canyon walls of various colors, fallen leaves, and more. On the previous visit we had all looked at this little scene of a large fallen section of the canyon wall with golden cottonwoods growing all around, and then pretty much continued on since the trees where being whipped around by the wind. But on this second visit the wind was calm, and light was reflected into the scene from sunlit sandstone walls to our left.

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

Aspens, Boulder Mountain, Evening

May 1, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn aspens in front of rugged landscape of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah

This was an especially beautiful evening on the shoulder of the Boulder Mountain area of Utah. Six months earlier, on our first visit to this state, we had passed over Boulder Mountain early in April, before the spring leaves had appeared on the tremendous aspen groves found here. I imagined that this must be quite a sight in the fall when all of those aspens would inevitably change to yellow and gold and red and orange. With this in mind we planned our fall visit to cross this area again in early October, figuring that this would be about the right time for fall color.

It turns out that we probably missed the absolute peak of color – partly because the change happens on a slightly different schedule in these Utah mountains than in “my” Sierra Nevada, and because the transition seemed to occur a bit early this year, perhaps due to dry conditions earlier in the year. When we arrived we found that at the highest elevations the trees were already devoid of leaves. However, as we passed around the shoulder of the range to turn toward Torrey, we came upon some extensive and beautiful stands of colorful trees just before sunset and stopped to make photographs. This photograph looks across nearby aspens in the shadow of high clouds and beyond to the sandstone terrain in the area between Capitol Reef National Park and the small town of Boulder, an area that we finally got to investigate a few days later after crossing over the high country of Capitol Reef. At the time I made this photograph there was a nice soft haze – my kind of conditions! – and high clouds to the west were creating a lightscape alternating shadows and sun that played across the terrain.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Redwood Forest Light

April 24, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Misty morning light shines through coast redwood forest, Northern California

On this late-March morning I headed north over the Golden Gate Bridge, hoping to photograph the trillium bloom at Muir Woods National Monument. Every year this event seems to sneak up on me, and I often just barely catch it before the bloom ends or even miss it. I had heard that the flowers were already in bloom a week earlier, so I wasn’t sure what I would find – but I did get the chance to photograph these flowers that seem to announce the arrival of spring in the redwood forest.

There is a particular trail at this National Monument where I usually go to find the trillium flowers. They seem to like the slightly more open light of this hillside trail, and as I ascend it I usually find quite a few of the flowers… if I arrive at the right time. Every so often I remind myself to look in the other direction, too, since there the hillside drops off steeply, running all the way down to the creek at the bottom of the canyon. The elevated perspective provides a somewhat unusual view into the forest. One challenge of shooting redwoods is that so often you are angling the camera/lens up, and consequently have to deal with various challenges including bright sky appearing in the scene and the effects of converging perspective line. But from this trail it is possible to point the camera horizontally and shoot right into the forest itself, far above the base of the trees down in the canyon below.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: monument

Box Elder with Sparse Leaves

Like this:

Cottonwood, Fallen Monolith, and Cliff

Like this:

Aspens, Boulder Mountain, Evening

Like this:

Redwood Forest Light

Like this:

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

Share this page:

Like this:

Share this page:

Like this:

Share this page:

Like this:

Share this page:

Like this:

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