Tag Archives: monument

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

Cottonwood Trees, Escalante River Canyon

April 7, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cottonwood trees, in various stages of fall color, beneath a tall sandstone cliff along the Escalante River, Utah

There is a little bit of a story behind this photograph. We had visited this canyon area almost a week earlier when we first arrived in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument area, but the results had not been quite what we had hoped. We were imagining clear and sunny skies reflecting colorful light down into canyon depths, warm temperatures, still air, and more. Instead we got partial clouds, freezing cold temperatures, and high winds! All of these factors had turned out photographic plans into an extremely difficult challenge. We made it up our canyon to about this point, but the winds were too strong and we were perhaps too cold to stick around. But I had noticed this group of trees at different stages in the transition to fall color and backed by huge boulders and a massive cliff of sandstone.

Nearly a week later we had some extra time and we decided that a second try at this location might be worthwhile. In contrast to that earlier visit, now it was warmer, sunnier, and less windy. We made it to the same portion of the canyon – and a bit further, too – and now found that photography was a lot more possible than it had been only a few days earlier. The color and light on this little scene might need some explanation. The cottonwood trees were, indeed, exhibiting color variations from yellow/gold, through golden brown, and even some still-green leaves. The light came from out of the frame to the right, where a very large and tall sandstone cliff was in full sun and reflecting warm colored light down into this shaded section of the canyon. The color of this light was very surprising. You can see a bit of what was going on by looking at the large boulder behind the trees. The surface facing my camera position appears blue, partly because it was in shadow and partly because that is close to the actual color of this rock. But if you look at the left side of this rock, where a large surface faces that sunlit cliff, it has taken on a color that is almost the same as that of the tree!

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Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Trillium Flower and Leaves

March 28, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A single trillium flower grows in the redwood forest of Muir Woods National Monument

I was brought up mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area. (I like to describe myself as a “virtual native” of California, since I’ve lived here since I was four years old.) When I was a child my parents would often – or so it seemed to me – bundle us into the family car for day trips to many of the nearby areas where I photograph on day trips today: Point Lobos, Pinnacles National Monument (now National Park), San Francisco, Big Basin State Park. One of the main attractions of Big Basin is the presence of coast redwood trees. I suppose that because I’ve always known trees this large that they don’t shock me the way that they do visitors who haven’t seen them before – but every once in a while I realize just how remarkable their size is.

However, with all of my youthful visits to redwood forests, it seems odd to admit that I never saw the trillium flowers there until I was much older. In retrospect, I’m pretty certain that visiting such places was a warm weather event in my family – and trillium blossoms appear at a time of the year when things are still distinctly wet and chilly. Now I try to see them every late winter and early spring, and to photograph them if possible. With this goal, I made a one day trip to the redwoods of Marin County north of San Francisco last week, making sure to arrive very early, before the hordes of tourist buses would arrive from nearby San Francisco. I managed to get a couple of hours in the deep early morning shade of the redwood forest to photograph these flowers before the sun and the other visitors arrived, making photography less appealing. Those who may not have seen the plant in the wild might be surprised at its form. Beneath the three trios of leaves/flowers that you see in this photograph, the whole affair is supported on a single long and bare step that rises vertically from the forest floor. The flowers, which can range in color from pure white through pink to a sort of dark and dusty burgundy, don’t last long, and if you aren’t there during the short interval when they blossom you might not notice them at all.

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

Cactus, Escalante Canyon, Fall

March 6, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Cactus plants grow in front of brilliant fall colors along the Escalante River, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

I saw and stopped to photograph this little cluster of cactus plants on our second, mostly wind free (!) visit to this area of the Escalante. I had just photographed the trees in the far distance of this shot, which grew right next to the river at a place where the trail crosses the stream. As I moved on, the trail rose a bit above the river bed and things seemed a bit less directly affected by the passage of the water in the river – and near here I found this group of cactus plants growing in a clump.

The light was special here. The area of the photograph was in shadow at this time of day, with the sun well behind the high cliff walls that towered overhead. But the light from the west was able to strike the upper walls of the canyon to the east, and this light, warmed in tone by the red sandstone rock, cast a glow down of warm light down into the canyon. It intensified the colors of the cottonwood trees, and cast some better light on the cactus plants.

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

Striped Rock, Grass, and Sand

February 17, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A striped rock atop grasses flattened against the sand in the bottom of a slot canyon, Grand Staircase-Escalent National Monument.

I made this photograph in the first canyon we investigated during my late-October 2012 visit to Utah with photographer friends. We drove up a long gravel road and pulled off at a wide spot to find the creek that came out of this canyon, which we followed a good distance upstream. Believe it or not, this was the first time that I had hiked such a canyon and it was exciting to move from imagining the experience to actually doing it! We started out by essentially walking up the creek bed though the flats below where it left the canyon, wading through shallow water and little sand bars. Soon we entered the canyon itself and the “path” involved walking alongside the creek, frequently crossing from one side of the stream to the other to avoid obstacles, and sometimes just walking right up the stream bed, as that often provided the clearest path.

In the location where I made this photograph, the light became very red as it reflected between the upper sandstone canyon walls, and although I was shooting in the shade I had unusually warm toned light to work with. The sand here comes from – no surprise! – sandstone, and was very red in places. This bit of sand had been smoothed by the passage of higher water which had also flattened the grasses and wrapped them around this small rock with its bright red stripe.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: monument

Cottonwood Trees, Escalante River Canyon

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Trillium Flower and Leaves

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Cactus, Escalante Canyon, Fall

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Striped Rock, Grass, and Sand

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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.