Tag Archives: park

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

Death Valley From The Panamint Range

April 15, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Looking down from the ridge of the Panamint Range toward Death Valley

I have paused near this spot many times while traveling in the Panamint Mountains of Death Valley, sometimes thinking about making a photograph but never quite seeing it. It probably hasn’t helped that I’ve typically been on my way to another location as I passed by, and I didn’t really want to linger here too long while the light was waiting for me at my destination. In fact, on my outward journey I more or less passed right by this time, too. I went on to my destination, spent time there making photographs of a subject that I had in mind, took time to fix breakfast “on the road,” and then turned back.

By the time I passed by this spot again on the return trip it was well past the typical photography hours in Death Valley, where the light can become quite harsh and washed out closer to the middle of the day. But this time that seemed to almost work to my advantage, especially since a bit to thin high cloudiness muted the light just a bit, and the distant haze in the Valley helped produce a near-far distance effect. So I stopped, in a spot close to by not exactly where I had previous thought about photographing, noticed that the hills at the close edge of the Valley were just visible through the slot between the converging slopes on either side of the gully, and made a photograph which I anticipated would become a monochrome image.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Hills And Alluvial Fan

April 13, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light on desert hills and a gigantic alluvial fan above the salt flats of Death Valley

There are a number of things that characterize Death Valley for me — the arid climate, of course, but also the exposed geology, the texture and sound of gravel underfoot, the widely scattered plant life, the quality of atmosphere and light. But most of all I think it is the immense scale of the place that impresses me. It is easy to overlook the fact that the small hill or those dunes or that peak that seem so close may be far enough away that you could not walk there in a day, or that it might take a few hours of driving.

That scale is visible in this photograph, though it may not be immediately apparent. While the foreground was, with its low walls illuminated by early morning light, is very close, and getting to the first dark hill might take no more than 15 minutes, the further hill down on the lower portion of the alluvial fan might require a morning’s walk. It would likely take all day to get to the closest portion of the distant salt flats, and the furthest areas at the upper part of the frame would require a few days of walking. I arrived at this place — but not by walking! — before the sun rose, when it was cloudy and seemed like it might not be a good day for light. But there were a few breaks in the clouds, and across the valley to the right of the scene some sun was striking a mountain ridge. Before long, as the sun came up and rose higher in the sky, that light began to move closer until it finally washed across the landscape in front of me.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Ghost Towns, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Abandoned Stamp Mill

April 11, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

It seems that every national park or monument has both a natural and a human hisstory, or perhaps a story about the relationship between the two. While the power of natural forces (heat, water, geology, and more) is abundantly obvious in the huge, austere landscape of Death Valley National Park, the human history of the place is rarely far from view. It begins with the evidence of people who lived here long before European-origin settlers came, evidence that can be seen in rock art scattered throughout the park, in the recognition that many settlements (current and now-abandoned) have a very much longer history than we may think, and in the native people who still occupy and identify with this landscape.

Perhaps more obvious is the more recent history of those who came to look for mining success. (There are places in the park where extraction still takes place.) Some examples are obvious to the casual visitor, but the more time you spend in the back-country of the park the more you understand that this particular history is everywhere — though not usually as obvious as this example. This stamp mill, built to crush gold ore, is amazing in multiple ways. Perched at the end of high ridge in very remote location, it was powered in the most unlikely manner… by water piped in from a spring over twenty miles away. The location is stupendous, and it is easy to think that practical issues may not have been the only considerations in choosing the site. From here one can look down thousands of feet to broad alluvial slopes leading towards Death Valley, but one can also look further into the distance and see the snow-covered peaks of the Sierra Nevada.

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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. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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

Desert Hills, Morning

April 10, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light slants across desert hills, Death Valley National Park

If you know Death Valley well, you already know this — but to many of you it may come as a surprise to realize just how much of Death Valley’s character is the result of the actions of water. The main valley itself was once the floor of a huge lake, and quite a few formations were formed beneath its surface. Once you realize this you begin to see the evidence everywhere. And in the time since the lake’s waters receded, the effects of water have continued in other ways. Evidence of flowing water is everywhere, from the gullies inscribed into the hillsides, to the washes that are found almost everywhere, and including the gigantic alluvial fans forms as floods carried eroded material from the high mountains out onto the desert floor. This extraordinarily dry landscape is, oddly enough, one of the easiest places to see the effects of water.

I had originally planned to photograph in a salt flat area where a bit of water flows, but when I arrived and found that my intended distant subject was under dim, cloudy light I decided to go with plan b and move on to higher ground. I had scoped out this location on a previous evening and was intrigued by the overlapping patterns of darker hills rising above the alluvial fan and the way they recede into distant haze. In the morning I could tell from a distance that there was light up here, so I quickly headed this direction, arriving just as the first light touched some clouds overhead. As I continued to photograph the clouds moved, bringing alternating periods of hazy gloom and then beautiful light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: park

Death Valley From The Panamint Range

Hills And Alluvial Fan

Abandoned Stamp Mill

Desert Hills, Morning

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