Tag Archives: morning

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Dawn Light

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Dawn Light
“Dawn Light” — Red dawn light on ridgetop boulders, Panamint Range.

I share this photograph as much for illustrative purposes as for its value as a photograph — it is, in part, a record of a remarkable light phenomenon that too many people never experience. Indeed, it can be difficult to rise hours before dawn, travel to a remote place in the darkness, and stand on a mountain ridge in the winter. But once you do it a few times and see what happens, you will likely be hooked.

We arrived at a high prominence in this desert mountain range in morning twilight. A band of intense red pre-dawn light glowed along the ridge of the mountains to our east, and the clouds began to pick up this color as we set up our camera gear. A moment later the first direct light from the rising sun struck these rocks, turning them blood red.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Utah Autumn Sky

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Utah Autumn Sky
“Utah Autumn Sky” — Early morning autumn sky at Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

This is an example of what you can find when you focus on “the other stuff” — things other than the main subject that you came for. The spectacular and other-worldly summits of Capitol Reef lie out of sight behind my camera position, I turned my camera 180 degrees the other way to encompass this scene. We see a vast (mostly) sandstone Utah landscape, with lenticular clouds above and autumn cottonwood trees lining a stream in the bottom of the valley.

This sky is also an example of that “other stuff” concept. We initially stopped at this point just before sunrise when those clouds were spectacularly colored by red and orange dawn light. That scene was remarkable, but here the sky color has faded almost completely, and the darker tones contrast with the red rock color.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Photographer, Manly Lake

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Photographer, Manly Lake
“Photographer, Manly Lake” — A photographer wades in shallow waters of Manly Lake, Death Valley.

As I photographed the landscape another photographer worked her way out onto the shallow water at the edge of Manly Lake. At first I managed to photograph around her, but before long she moved directly into m frame. At this point it occurred to me that she could become the subject of a photograph herself.

Her presence illustrates something that may not be obvious about this desert lake — it is extremely shallow! This makes sense once you think about the nature of the terrain here This is Badwater Basin, a broad playa containing the lowest elevation in Death Valley. It is nearly flat, and differences in elevation on the playa are measured in centimeters. She was able to find places to step that were perhaps only a centimeter or two higher than the water. (From the Department of Awful Puns, it occurred to me that a fun alternative title for this photo could be “Photograph Her, Manly Lake.”)

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Distant Mountains, Reflection

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Distant Mountains, Reflection
“Distant Mountains, Reflection” — Manly Lake reflects distant mountains and morning haze.

The scale of Death Valley is monumental. It is one of the few National Parks where you encounter distances so great that faraway features disappear into the light and haze. The absence of familiar reference points like trees makes it harder to comprehend these distances. It is perhaps a mile to the nearby hills in this photograph, but the distant mountain range is many tens of miles away.

We arrived before sunrise to photograph the colorful dawn light. Later I turned my camera away from the main scene and back toward these hills whose forms were reflected in Lake Manly. Beyond, the distant Amargosa Range glows softly through the haze in the early morning light.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.