Tag Archives: mountains

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.

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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Granite, Mist, and Trees

February 27, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A momentary beam of sunlight illuminates a granite outcropping and trees against a backdrop of clouds surrounding the upper cliffs of Yosemite Valley

We had one day in the Valley and despite challenging weather conditions were determined to make photographs. I knew that it was likely to be cloudy, but there was also light rain (and snow at slightly higher elevations), making it a rather gray day. However, in some ways these can be among my favorite conditions to photograph here. When it is cloudy or stormy in the Valley, clouds can drift among the feature high up on the surrounding cliffs and peaks, and sometimes there can be fog and other kinds of interesting atmosphere right down in the Valley – and I feel that these conditions are both more interesting and more challenging that a classic “beautiful day” in the Valley. (Not that I won’t take one of those, too, if it turns out to be available.)

Looking for interesting subjects we headed west on Northside Drive and found clouds obscuring the face of El Capitan, blowing enough that they would momentarily reveal sections of the giant granite face. We stopped at one of the locations from which hordes of photographers would attempt to photograph Horsetail Fall later that evening and I made a few photographs of this foggy sight, but then I turned a long lens towards other sections of the steep terrain above the Valley, looking for sections where interesting things might happen as the clouds drifted around and occasional sun broke through. As I lined up a composition that included various diagonals from rocky prominences and cliffs rising above, the sun began to shine weakly through the clouds and light up the closest rock while those beyond remained mostly gray.

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

La Sal Mountains, Evening

January 23, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Sunset light on sandstone towers of Arches National Park and on the distant La Sal Mountains, Utah

I was hoping to get up into the La Sal Mountains, in the Moab/Arches area, during this visit to Utah, but it didn’t quite happen. We had seen some aspen groves high on their slopes and thought they could make a good photographic subject, but we were twice stymied – well, once stymied and once we guessed wrong. The wrong guess came first. As we approached Moab late in the day from the south, we though we would turn off the main highway before reaching town and drive up there. However, a sign warning of construction and a road closure dissuaded us, so we turned around and continued to Moab. Later, thinking that if it was closed from the first route (and actually, it wasn’t) then there must be access from the alternative, we drove up the Colorado River Canyon and turned off to head up that way… only to encounter road construction! We could perhaps have continued on, but it was late in the day and we had not calculated this delay when guessing how long it might take to get up to the trees.

So, in the end, our views of the La Sal Mountains were from greater distances – from high on the plateau of Canyonlands National Park and from Arches National Park. On the day I made this photograph, the light had been “interesting” – a combination of blah, clouded-over light, with occasional bursts of beautiful light coming through breaks in the clouds. We had been out on the ridge near the end of the main park road and had really enjoyed those moments of wonderful light, but late in the day it looked like the breaks would end there, but that they might continue over near the section of the park where this photo was made. So we quickly got in the car and headed over that way. When we arrived, things did not look so promising. The large clouds that had begun to block the light earlier were also affecting this area. But there we were, and there wasn’t time to try to get to another location before the end of the day, so we headed up into this rocky area to see what might develop. From here, the La Sals were largely clear, with more sun than shadow on the face of the mountains. Even though there were clouds overhead at our position, they were increasingly broken as they led toward the mountains. Now all I needed was some evening light on the foreground rocks and I might have a photograph. I got my wish, with just a few brief moments of somewhat attenuated golden hour light on the rocks as the more intense light fell on the distant range.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Old Cottonwood Trees, Autumn

January 4, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

This is a photograph that I wish I had seen this way while I was there! On the scene, while wandering into a beautiful section of a big, deep canyon to photograph water, sandstone, and fall colors, I came across these trees (or this tree – they may grow from a common root system) and made the photograph in landscape orientation… and only realized while working on it in post that I really like it in portrait orientation, too. So, yes, this is cropped from a larger original photograph.

I don’t know how others will “see” this, but for me this version recalls a lot of older monochrome photographs of subjects like this from an earlier era – the era in which I first came to be fascinated by photography. Way “back in the day” when I first did photography, with the encouragement and help of my father, virtually all of the photographers whose work inspired me shot black and white. With that in mind, and with my early experience involving how to shoot, develop, and print black and white, I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise that I still love monochrome. (A number of my personal favorites among my own work are black and white.) In this one I even applied the virtual equivalent of the classic filtering to alter the tonal balance and lighten clouds and foliage and somewhat darken the massive, twisting forms of tree trunks and branches.

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: mountains

Mesquite Dunes, Cottonwood Mountains

La Sal Mountains, Evening

Old Cottonwood Trees, Autumn

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