Tag Archives: mountains

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

Dusk Sandstorm, Desert Mountains

April 17, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Strong desert winds whip up a dusk sandstorm below the Grapevine Mountains, Death Valley National Park

To look at many photographs – including my own – of places like Death Valley, a viewer unfamiliar with the desert might begin to imagine a place of clear skies (with appropriate beautiful clouds), brilliant sun, intense colors, flowers, plants, and much more. While all of those things can be found in the desert, the fact that they are often more the exception than the rule may at least partially account for their popularity as photographic subjects. Yes, I have seen stunningly beautiful and colorful sunrises and sunsets, while standing in quiet and still air and in comfortable temperatures. However, I have also experienced rain, snow, very powerful winds, sand and dust storms, intense cold, nearly debilitating heat, and more.

This photograph was made during some of the less-than-lovely conditions that are quite common at this time of year, namely very strong winds and the resulting sand storm. Near the middle of the day I had caught my first glimpses of sand/dust rising up into the sky from some nearby dunes. Having been through this before, I was not fooled by the fact that the air remained almost completely still at my location at that time – and it wasn’t long at all until the winds become more general and began to lift sand and dust into the air across the entire end of the valley and then carry clouds of this material northward. I cannot say that I enjoy being in such conditions at all. Sand gets into everything, stuff that isn’t tied down blows away, breathing and opening your eyes can be a challenge. (Later, when I returned to camp in the darkness, I couldn’t face the idea of breaking out the camp stove and trying to cook and eat in the strong winds… so I wimped out and went to the restaurant at Stove Pipe Wells!) But as uncomfortable as these conditions can be, they are also visually special and impressive, so I headed out to the far side of the Valley, figuring that I might be able to shoot back into and across the sand storm while remaining on its edge. I shot through the late afternoon and continued as the sun set, leaving behind the murky, dust-filled atmosphere that shrouded everything. As twilight came on, the winds shifted, and dust clouds that had been blowing away from me began to move south down the valley towards me, obscuring the base of the Grapevine Mountains along the edge of Death Valley.

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

Diablo Range, Winter Sunset

April 15, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Colorful winter sunset over the Diablo Range, seen from California’s San Joaquin Valley

It is rare for me to shoot a scene quite like this one, with the setting sun included in the frame. It was a sort of spontaneous thing. I had a very long lens on the camera since I was photographing geese and cranes in the evening light, and when I looked up and saw that the sun was setting right in the low point on the ridge of the Diablo Range I quickly grabbed my tripod and made a few exposures of this scene.

This time right around and just after sunset is what I think of as the magic hour here in this Valley between the Sierra and the Diablo Range. Much of the pre-sunset coming and going of the geese pauses and things seem to slow down. The wild color was only there for a brief moment, and only in this specific part of the sky right above the setting sun, where the low light reflected off the bottom of a high, thin cloud layer. A single bird (perhaps a hawk? is in the upper branches of the tree at far left, and some light reflects off of the surface of the ponds at this wildlife refuge.

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

Morning Haze, Death Valley

March 8, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Distant snow-covered peaks are barely visible across the vast space of Death Valley in hazy morning light

This photograph was made from Dantes View, high in the mountains along the eastern border of Death Valley itself, and with a commanding, panoramic view of a huge portion of the surrounding terrain and especially down into Death Valley and the Badwater area almost right beneath the peak. The view here looks roughly north or northwest, past the location of Furnace Creek and beyond the Mesquite Dunes area to the far northern end of the Valley and then beyond to distant snow-covered peaks.

I have written before that Dantes View has been a difficult place for me to photograph. At first glance, the location has a lot going for it. At about a mile above the Valley floor below, the views encompass a huge area of interesting terrain, ranging from the lowest reaches of Death Valley itself to the 11,000+” Telescope in the Panamint Range to other features so distant that they often fade into the haze. But for me these same features make it very difficult to pick out anything that can draw the larger components of the scene together. There have been times when I have gone there with the intention of photographing, gotten out, looked around, been impressed by the location, and made no photographs at all. This time I mostly shot details of the Valley using a very long lens, but I thought that the shadows of the passing clouds brought enough relieve to the uniformity of the Valley to make this photograph, which I hope conveys some sense of the scale of the place.

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

Mesquite Dunes, Cottonwood Mountains

March 2, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Mesquite Dunes and the Cottonwood Mountains late on a hazy afternoon, Death Valley National Park, California

The Mesquite Dunes are a well-known icon of Death Valley and are often photographed in the early morning or around sunset. I made this photograph at a somewhat different time – late in the afternoon but well before the golden hour light of evening. The sun was still high enough to illuminate the tops of the dunes and even the sides away from the sun, and the afternoon haze made the atmosphere blue and obscured the rugged features of the Cottonwood Mountains beyond the dunes and across the Valley.

If you look closely enough, you can find a number of features that characterize this area of the valley. The foreground flats are “filled” with plants that grow a good distance apart from one another, apparently due to the limited water. The edge of the dunes spills over slightly into the gravelly flat but then rises quite high. Beyond the dunes, and faintly seen through the haze, a giant alluvial fan slants down from higher mountains to the left. (It sometimes surprises visitors to see how much the terrain in this very dry place has been shaped by water.) Beyond the sloping fan, the rugged Cottonwood Mountains, part of the Panamint Range, begin to rise to quite high peaks.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: mountains

Diablo Range, Winter Sunset

Mesquite Dunes, Cottonwood Mountains

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