Tag Archives: morning

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

Death Valley Buttes, Morning

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Death Valley Buttes, Morning - Early morning light on the summit of the Death Valley Buttes, with the Panamint Range in the distance, Death Valley National Park, California.
Early morning light on the summit of the Death Valley Buttes, with the Panamint Range in the distance, Death Valley National Park, California.

Death Valley Buttes, Morning. Death Valley National Park, California. January 3, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early morning light on the summit of the Death Valley Buttes, with the Panamint Range in the distance, Death Valley National Park, California.

I found several things in this scene that I often look for in Death Valley, or in other similar places for that matter. I’m always intrigued by the small plants that grow along these very barren and rocky areas, sometimes – as here – along with a few cacti. And of course it is hard to resist the golden early morning light, especially when it is juxtaposed with one of my favorite subjects, more distant mountains somewhat obscured by haze. On top of that, I liked the almost abstract shapes of these forms and combination of the warm sunlight on the foreground hills and the cooler, blue-tone light beyond.

I made this photograph on a morning when I really did not have a specific shooting plan, or perhaps I might say that I had a “negative plan” defining what I was not going to photograph – I set out to not go to some of the familiar and more iconic locations in Death Valley, on this morning and to some extent on this trip. So I ended up on a road that eventually crosses the Amargosa Range and heads off toward Beatty Nevada. I knew I was looking for some sort of juxtaposition of the forms on the outcroppings and buttes up higher on the large gravel fan in this part of the Valley and I knew that I wanted to photograph the early light – but exactly where to do this was not clear. As I drove I passed some promising locations and finally stopped at a pull-out near this site, put on a long lens, and made this and several other photographs from this spot.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Tree and Bird-Filled Morning Sky

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Tree and Bird-Filled Morning Sky - Giant flocks of migratory birds fill the winter sky above the Central Valley of California.
Giant flocks of migratory birds fill the winter sky above the Central Valley of California.

Tree and Bird-Filled Morning Sky. Central Valley, California. January 28, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Giant flocks of migratory birds fill the winter sky above the Central Valley of California.

There are times when the number of migratory birds visible in California’ Central Valley approaches the level of unbelievable. As we photographed them near the end of January, at one point we noticed that there are almost always more birds than you think you see. Your attention might be caught by a formation of birds flying not too far above. But if you look beyond them you might see another formation up higher. And if you look more closely you might find even more birds higher and further away. For me it is common to review a photograph that I made of one grouping only to discover many, many more that I had not even seen when I made the exposure.

During a lull in the action directly overhead, I looked a bit further out to the east and noticed what might best be described as a “cloud of birds” rising from an area perhaps a mile or more away. At first the cloud stuck together, but soon it began to thin and separate into smaller groups. If you look more closely at this little jpg version of the image, you may still be able to see even more birds than were apparent at first glance. The sidelight on the tree and the plants growing around the pond comes from very early morning sunlight shortly after dawn.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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

Ridges and Haze

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Ridges and Haze - Morning haze and receding ridges above Death Valley.
Morning haze and receding ridges above Death Valley.

Ridges and Haze. Death Valley National Park, California. January 3, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning haze and receding ridges above Death Valley.

There is “stuff” to photograph virtually anywhere you go in Death Valley – from the popular, iconic locations to the furthest back-country areas to nondescript turn-outs along whatever road you happen to be on. One of my goals on this January 2012 trip was to shoot some less-obvious locations. While the image is perhaps not “less obvious,” the location is probably not anything you are going to find in your park guidebook.

Early one morning I was out and about, at least partly thinking about where not to shoot – not the obvious places that first come to mind on a Death Valley morning. (I have nothing at all against photographing those places, too, especially when the conditions are just right.) I ended up more or less randomly heading up a road into some mountains, but without a specific goal in mind. I was simply driving along and watching for the “right” conduction of form and light and color. Several times I thought I saw something, but I didn’t stop, instead just making a quick mental note that I might want to come back to these spots and shoot them. (I didn’t on this trip, but I have them filed away for a future visit.) I finally arrived at a junction where the light was good, got out, set up camera and tripod, and set about looking for subjects.

Sometimes I have a pretty good idea of what I’m looking for, but it might surprise some people that I occasionally – perhaps more than you might think – have no specific photographic objective in mind when I get out the gear and begin my “hunt.” I like to joke that I could find myself almost anywhere with a camera and tripod and eventually find something to shoot within 50 feet of my location. (Occasionally, it might even be a good photograph… :-) While I most certainly do like certain locations, in many cases it isn’t so much about the specific place as it is about hunting for and discovering the visual opportunities presented by whatever place I’m in.

So, I started looking around. And I started making photographs. I photographed a nearby hill that caught some “first light” from the east, with more distant hills in the background. I photographed a long view of a haze-filled valley scene. I pointed my camera up a gully filled with rocks and desert plants. I make a picture of a non-description ridge top pinnacle with interesting clouds behind it. And I put the longest lens I had on the camera and shot almost into the sun to photograph this amazing sequence of stacked ridges high along the spine of a nearby mountain range.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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

Trail Canyon

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Trail Canyon - Morning light angles across eroded ridges and gullies on lower slopes of the Panamint Range above Trail Canyon, Death Valley National Park.
Morning light angles across eroded ridges and gullies on lower slopes of the Panamint Range above Trail Canyon, Death Valley National Park.

Trail Canyon. Death Valley National Park. January 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light angles across eroded ridges and gullies on lower slopes of the Panamint Range above Trail Canyon, Death Valley National Park.

This is another photograph that I’ve been thinking about for a while, and one that I was virtually certain would be in black and white when I shot it. I’ve looked down into Trail Canyon quite a few times and tried to “see” a photograph that would somehow consist entirely of the overlapping ridges and layers of stratified rock, tilted at crazy and seemingly opposing angles. My previous photographs of this location had been made late in the day – when the light is beautiful in many directions from this overlook, but when the canyon itself is often shrouded in early shade.

I made this photograph in the morning. It was my first time at this location high in the Panamints at dawn instead of at sunset. I arrived on a cold winter morning before dawn to find no other people there and no wind. (The latter is a bit unusual here, but was certainly welcome, seeing that I would be shooting with long focal length lenses.) The first subject to shoot was the pre-dawn light on clouds high above the landscape. Then my attention moved to the first light striking various higher points within my range of view, and then followed the light as it worked its way down to lower elevations. After that I turned my attention more to guts of this canyon, but was not getting quite what I wanted at first – until the sun rose high enough to peak over ridges and begin to highlight the inner folds of the canyon as seen in this photograph. I made several different compositions, but in the end decided on this one that eliminates any extraneous elements outside of the canyon itself.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.