Tag Archives: monument

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

Autumn Cottonwood, Canyon Walls

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Autumn Cottonwood, Canyon Walls
An old canyon cottonwood tree approaching peak fall color, Utah.

Autumn Cottonwood, Canyon Walls. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An old canyon cottonwood tree approaching peak fall color, Utah.

A small group of photographers spent a day exploring this out-of-the-way canyon far out in the Southern Utah backcountry. If a friend had not shared the location with us I probably never would have gone here, and I am deeply grateful that he introduced us to the place.

We began at a totally nondescript pull-out off of a long gravel road, a place where I would never have expected to find such a canyon. We began walking on the dry flatlands and soon dropped into a shallow canyon with some sandstone along the bottom. As per the common pattern, as we walked the side walls began to quickly rise above us, and before long we were deep in a beautiful and lonely canyon. My recollection is that we saw no one other than our party that day. This grizzled old cottonwood stood near the junction of our canyon and a side canyon seen in the upper background.

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 and Amazon.

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

Disrupted Strata

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Disrupted Strata
The fractured and bent layers of a fractured boulder in a Utah slot canyon.

Disrupted Strata. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The fractured and bent layers of a fractured boulder in a Utah slot canyon.

This jumble of rocks sits in a Southern Utah canyon, piled on debris and the lower face of a cliff that runs along the banks of a small creek. The bottoms of such canyons are, for obvious reasons, places full of all sorts of debris that either falls from the surrounding cliffs or is washed down the canyon in periodic floods. A good part of the challenge of making progress through such terrain involves contending with this detritus.

As is so often the case in these landscapes, the initial appearance of features may mislead the viewer about their history. Rocks, of course, seem quite solid and immutable. But this little vignette of almost nothing but rock actually shows more about how much it changes than about its stability. This rock was formed in layers laid down by water a long, long time ago. Those layers were compressed, folded, upended and broken over time. Here we see a snapshot of that process. Lying atop a smoother section of the cliff, this deteriorating boulder’s layers are made apparent as they break apart and realign.

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 and Amazon.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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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

Autumn in the Canyon

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Autumn in the Canyon
A cottonwood tree with autumn foliage deep in the canyon of the Escalante River.

Autumn in the Canyon. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A cottonwood tree with autumn foliage deep in the canyon of the Escalante River.

In my previous post I mentioned something about the experience of wandering down canyons such as this one, in particular the seductive nature of the continuous pattern of “next bend,” straight section, and the next “next bend” — and the difficulty of resisting the lure of exploring just one more twist of the canyon. On this. day I ran into that temptation as your pre-set turn-around time arrived… and passed… and we continued through a couple more of these bends.

This was one of the earlier bends, a point where we came back down to the stream after passing over some higher ground in a straight section. Here we had to wade to cross the stream since the route now followed the opposite bank. After crossing I climbed up a bit to place this colorful cottonwood tree in a composition that included the canyon beyond, and as I photographed a string of horses forded the stream.

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 and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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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

Canyon Wall and Reflections

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Canyon Wall and Reflections
A vertical canyon wall is reflected in the Utah canyon stream.

Canyon Wall and Reflections. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A vertical canyon wall is reflected in the Utah canyon stream.

A small group of photographers spent a couple days exploring this canyon, walking in from its wide mouth and soon being surrounded by tall sandstone cliffs and cut off from the outside world. On the first day it was quite cold and we faced the challenge of wind — which created some big challenges when photographing in the shadowed depths of the canyon. We had some success, but a few days later we decided to return and try for a day with less wind.

In this canyon I recognized a lesson that I suppose I already knew subconsciously. As we worked out way downstream we were balancing the distance we could travel against the amount of time we spend on each subject and calculating our necessary turn-around time if we were to exit the canyon in daylight. But it is hard to stop exploring such a place, and more that once we would round a bend, see another section of canyon come into view, and say, “just this one more section.” Then we’d reach the next bend, feel the need to explore it, catch a glimpse of what was around the next bend and, well, you get the idea. If I recall correctly, this was the final bend at which we realized that we had to reverse course. It was a lovely spot, extremely still and quiet, with the small stream flowing gently past the bottom of a very large and rugged cliff in deep shadows.

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 and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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