Tag Archives: panamint

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

Panamint Range, Reflection

May 14, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The east face of the Panamint Range is reflected in the surface of a desert pool

This is a photograph of one of those surprising features of Death Valley — water in the middle of a place that is astonishingly arid. This location is one of the lowest, hottest, and driest places in the Valley, and beyond this pool is a terrain that is particularly inhospitable, the famous salt flats. It is not pleasant to venture out there on a hot and sunny day, when not only is the heat oppressive but the light is so intense on the white playa surface that it is almost impossible to look.

I went here quite early one morning, in time for the sunrise light across the Valley on the mountains of the Panamint Range. In many ways this was not a hugely promising morning. I would have preferred some interesting clouds, though the thing high clouds are not completely uninteresting. It might have been nice to have white salt flats, but the playa had apparently gone so long without rain and had experience enough wind that the sometimes-white salt was quite gray. This little pool, at the edge of the Valley and the base of the tall and rugged hills, mirrored the early morning sky and a bit of the dawn color on the mountains.

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

Sunrise Haze, Panamint Mountains

April 7, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Haze from airborne dust above the crest of the Panamint Mountains at dawn

I suppose that I was the “victim” of a sort of natural April Fool’s joke on this April 1 morning. I woke up very early, thinking I might photograph from high along the spine of the Panamint Mountains east of Death Valley. I was on the road in the dark, and as I got closer to my goal and the light began to increase enough to see a bit I noticed that it was hazy — the sort of haze that I associate with dust storms in this part of the world. But there was no dust storm, at least not where I was — just a lot of stuff in the air. Since there were no clouds, I figured that I would get above it by the time I reached my goal at over 6000′ of elevation. I topped the final climb onto the ridge where I could look into Death Valley… and was greeted with haze so thick that it almost looked more like fog (almost an impossibility here), and the floor of the Valley was completely invisible.

Such conditions could be disappointing for someone looking for a “sunrise shot,” but I actually love unusual conditions, especially when they involve mist and haze and fog and clouds. I covered the short distance remaining to reach the end of the road, parked and unloaded camera gear, and looked around to try to figure out how to photograph in these unexpected circumstances. A few minutes later the sun rose thought the haze, and I made a few photographs. I decided that I would likely have to remain here a while and observe the landscape gradually become visible as light penetrated down to lower elevations and as the dust-filled atmosphere thinned a bit. I turned my attention away from the deep valley and towards the ridge leading away to the north, where the thin light illuminated a landscape of shadow and light gradually fading into the distance.

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

Trail Canyon, Dust Storm Haze

April 5, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Trail Canyon and Death Valley obscured by dense morning haze from desert dust storms.

I had never seen a view quite like this one from this spot before, and I don’t recall seeing conditions quite like this in Death Valley National Park. I awoke very early — well before dawn — and headed up into the Panamint Mountains to the west of Death Valley, aiming for a familiar high location with panoramic views. I had several sorts of photographs in mind, including detail photographs of very small components of the larger landscape, the possibility of shooting directly into the light of the rising sun, and photographs of this deep canyon cutting down from the ridges toward the valley floor.

As I headed toward this spot I was surprised by the amount of haze in the air as the first light arrived. When I’ve seen such conditions before dust storms almost always followed, but I didn’t see any evidence of their development on this morning. (Later someone suggested to me that high winds farther to the west might have raised dust there and that it may have travelled over this direction.) I arrived at the summit ridge at around 6000′ expecting to see the view across and perhaps down into Death Valley, but instead I found myself looking down into a soupy haze that filled the Valley to this level and perhaps a bit higher. A short time later the sun rose through this murk and began to backlight it, creating an intense glow in the atmosphere and muting the small details of the mysterious landscape. The great Valley itself was virtually invisible in the thick haze, luminous with the morning backlight slanting in from the east.

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

Base of the Panamint Range

June 2, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The lower reaches of the Panamint Range drop to the floor of Death Valley

The stillness of this image belies what was actually happening when I made the exposure. It was late afternoon, and the sun was just above the ridge of the Panamint Range as we drove down through Death Valley, past the Mustard Hills and towards Furnace Creek. As often happens in the spring, the winds were rising. I saw the scene and immediately knew I wanted to stop and photograph it, with the backlit hills rising across the far side of the Valley. I grabbed my tripod, camera, and one lens and headed across the side of a nearby hill that looked like it might provide me with a higher vantage point, and immediately recognized that wind was going to be a real problem.

The same wind that had filled the atmosphere with the beautiful haze that was glowing in the backlight was also making it nearly impossible to photograph. There are some winds that are strong enough that almost no tripod can hold a camera still, and this was that sort of situation. I set up, hanging onto the tripod to prevent it from blowing over, and waited for a lull in the wind. The wind momentarily diminished enough for me to make a few exposures as a cloud shadow darkened the foreground salt flats.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: panamint

Panamint Range, Reflection

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Sunrise Haze, Panamint Mountains

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Trail Canyon, Dust Storm Haze

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Base of the Panamint Range

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

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