Desert Mountains, Evening Light And Haze. Death Valley National Park, California. April 3, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Soft light and haze in the evening high in the Panamint Mountain Range, Death Valley National Park
From a high point along the ridge of the Panamint Mountains, there are stupendous views in all directions — north and south along the spine of the range, east into Death Valley and on to Black Mountains and beyond, west across the lower Panamint hills as they drop toward the Panamint Valley only to rise again and eventually culminate in the Sierra Nevada crest. Early and late in the day the low angle light sweeps across the terrain and reveals large and small features of the landscape.
On this evening it was quite hazy, probably because high winds had whipped up sandstorms in lower elevation areas. This dust filled atmosphere can seem to glow from within when back-lit, and as I pointed my camera down toward these western slopes I began to see that luminescence. In a way there is nothing special in this photograph — a nearby ridge, and intervening valley, and more ridges in the distance. But the further ridge is still in the warm-colored, evening light, whose color contrasts with the cooler blue tones of the shadowed ridges.
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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