Tag Archives: mountains

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

Titus Canyon Road

February 6, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Titus Canyon Road descents into upper Titanothere Canyon before climbing to Red Pass

Early December is a fine time to be in Death Valley National Park, and I managed to spend five days there this past December. The weather is cooler this time of year – in fact, temperatures dropped into the upper twenties in the Valley during my visit and well down into the teens in some of the upper elevations that I visited during the pre-dawn hours. Although seasoned Death Valley visitors prefer to visit during the cooler months, things seem much quieter than a few months later in the spring. In fact, I almost had the entire Stovepipe Wells campground to myself on my first night!

The relative solitude extended to this day, on which I drove over the Amargosa Range via Titus Canyon Road, the rough back-country one-way route between the Amargosa Valley and Death Valley itself. I know this route fairly well, having been over it a number of times. I always start in the morning, and this trip was no exception – I was well out on to the route when the sun came up. Often I just take a few hours for the trip, stopping at a few key locations. But recently I have thought more about how I might photograph some of these places that I used to simply drive through, and on this visit I slowed way down and devoted almost the entire day to this area. The location in this photograph is an example of the sort of area that I might have just passed through in the past. Here the road traverses the upper reaches of a very large canyon that eventually spills out into Death Valley far below. The location from which I made the photograph marks the high point on the route, and I always stop there – but on some previous visits I have just regarded the terrain as being empty. It isn’t, and I’m learning to see it more clearly. Here the gravel road drops down from the previous ridge, winding through the rough and dry landscape to the bottom of the canyon and its dry stream bed before climbing steeply up to my camera position.

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

Desert Mountains and Valley

January 14, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Receding desert mountains about the Amargosa Valley, Death Valley National Park

At first look, the general scene here might not have appeared to offer too many photographic opportunities. Although it was still somewhat early in the morning, it was well past the “first light” phase that can make almost any subject look beautiful. There was a great deal of atmospheric haze, and it almost obscured the far mountain ranges. And, as seen in the lower portion of this photograph, while the location is in high and rugged mountains, it is an extremely spare landscape with few plants and only the subtlest of colors from the high desert sage and similar plants.

But, for me, several things were going on here. First, I like haze! Second, a few years ago, after many years of photographing in the Death Valley landscape, I began to look beyond the familiar and more obvious beauties of sunrise and sunset light in dramatic locations in the Valley, and to try to figure out how to photograph more subtle and complex beauties that I encountered at other times and in other locations. I had found myself most often driving through locations like this one, on my way to other places that I presumed would be more interesting. Yet, even though I wasn’t photographing this sort of place, I was having pleasant experiences in them and developing an affinity for them. On one trip it hit me that if I liked being here, there must be some what to make photographs that somehow expressed what it was in these apparently barren places that made me like them. So I stopped here for some time, in a place that might seem like many other places along this route, and I looked around.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Geese, San Joaquin Valley Sunset

December 25, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Geese fly toward the setting sun, San Joaquin Valley, California

Photographing these migratory birds involves an interesting combination of planning, intuitive response to the circumstances, and just plain raw luck. (In truth, that is the case with almost all photographs of almost all subjects, but that is probably a subject for a different post at another time.) All of those things were certainly at work in this photograph.

I often photograph in this general area at this time of year – ostensibly because of the migratory geese and cranes and other birds, but also because I love the diverse conditions of light and atmosphere here in the winter (and near-winter) months and the simple landscape. So the choice to be at this location at this time of day was no accident. (A bit more information: I was returning from Death Valley and I had organized this final day specifically so that I would have one hour at this location at sunset on the return trip.) In addition, when I found a large flock of geese in a field – in a place where I know there is a good chance I’ll find them – I positioned myself intentionally to the east of the flock so that the colorful light would be behind them as the day ended… or to their side. In addition, since I’ve photographed this subject before I have a pretty good idea of how to set up my camera to deal with the failing light combined with direct sun and birds in motion, even anticipating how I may have to work the images in post-production. But luck and intuition play an undeniable role in photographing this subject. While I can make some guesses about how the birds will act, I have no control over them at all – and I have to take what they give me. On this evening, they were mostly taking flight away from me and toward the mountains, though certainly not always with the sun behind them. Occasionally large groups would take to the air together, and I would simply track them and fire when it seemed best. Here is where another bit of intuition comes in. While I cannot control how the birds appear in relationship to their surroundings, I can manage to watch birds and landscape as both move in the viewfinder and think about composition even while everything is in fast motion – and, when it all works out, think about how momentary arrangements of the birds do or do not “work” with the light and the landscape. To end with an acknowledgement of how much I cannot control, it was simply fortuitous that this thick flock happened to wheel in front of the distant mountains just as the last edge of the sun was about to slip below the horizon.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Strait of Juan de Fuca, Evening

December 7, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening light near Hurricane Ridge and over the Strait of Juan de Fuca

After shooting in the lowland rainforest earlier in the day, we planned to head up to Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park in the evening, hoping for some interesting late day light. I’ve been “skunked” (frustrated by poor conditions!) on more than one occasion here, including one notable visit when the clouds reduced visibility to a distance that might have been measured in yards. An earlier web cam check and what we could now see from down below encouraged us to think that we might get something better this time, so into the park and up the road we went.

When we arrived the conditions were not quite stupendous, but they held the promise of becoming better, so we stuck around and photographed. Although it was mostly somewhat hazy and cloudy, every so often the sun would come through an opening in the clouds to the west, and the beams of light would move across the rugged landscape of the Olympic Mountains spread out in front of us – and on one occasion this light crossed through rain showers and produced a momentary rainbow. As things wound down – without there ever having been a real climactic moment of light – I decided to walk over to a low ridge from which there was a view to the north and the Strait of Juan De Fuca, with Canadian territory beyond. Again, the atmosphere was murky, though there were potentially interesting clouds about. I made this photograph near the very end of the day when a bit of filtered though direct light swept across the foreground ridge.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: mountains

Titus Canyon Road

Desert Mountains and Valley

Geese, San Joaquin Valley Sunset

Strait of Juan de Fuca, Evening

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.