Tag Archives: park

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

Dunes and Mountains, Last Light

April 28, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The last rays of evening sun on the lower slopes of the Amargosa Range above Death Valley sand dunes

I walked out into these low dunes, as I often do, an hour or so before sunset. It had been a hazy day, with the remnants of two days of dust storms muting the light and colors a bit, and the haze continued on into the early evening. At this time of day it often first seems like there is plenty of time to photograph — the light is changing, but the changes are still so slow that it takes many minutes to notice them. I looked up and judged the angle of the sun above the mountain tops to the west, and five minutes later when I looked again the change was hardly perceptible. I continued to follow a path through the dunes that was almost entirely the result of seeing things to photograph, photographing them, seeing other things, and moving on.

Shortly before the sun drops behind the ridge, the light begins to change quickly. As the last warm-colored light slants across dunes, their textures are highlighted and subtle colors begin to appear. I’m often struck by how silent the change is — it almost seems that the sound should change, too, but the transition happens quietly and with incredible speed. When I sense it is about to start I pick a spot and a subject and simply try to watch closely enough to time things right. I picked this composition for several reasons. It entirely excluded any living things, leaving only sand and mountains. The patterns caught the light in interesting ways, and created a sea of subtle color and tonal variations as the last direct light gradually worked its way up the face of the more distant 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

Sand Dune Patterns

April 24, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sand dune patterns following a day of dust storms

Sometimes we flatter ourselves by saying that we make photographs. Indeed, there is truth to that — if there wasn’t something unique in each act of photographic creation everyone would produce photographs of equal interest. However, there is also a distinct element of simply finding things — I like to think of it as hunting. In a location such as the one where I found this subject, there is, for all practical purposes, an infinity of possible subjects — and they are not static, but very much the result to constantly evolving processes of light and wind and erosion and rain and more. We like to tell ourselves that the photographs are out creations, but if we are honest we must admit that there is a great deal in our subjects that is completely beyond our control.

I understand the periodic feeling that “there is nothing to photograph.” However, many times the opposite problem is the challenge — there are so many possible photographs and so many potential ways to approach each subject that it can be overwhelming. During perhaps an hour or a bit more on these dunes I was never without something to photograph, and there were moments the work seemed almost frantic as I spotted some effect of light and hurried to find a way to photograph it during the brief time before it was gone. These patterns were the result of dust storms and high winds over the past 24 hours or more. These conditions had piled sand up near the tops of dunes, and on the leeward side the sand had drifted downward, following patterns that seem more like those of a liquid than a solid. I happened to show up as the low angle evening light briefly passed from left to right across the surface of this texture, and working quickly I was able to make a few exposures before the light faded.

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

Dunes in Shadow

April 23, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sand dunes in the shadows of post-sunset light

You could be forgiven to thinking that the subject of sand dunes has been “done,” and even over-done. Nonetheless, it is hard to resist a walk into and among the dunes on a spring evening as the light diminishes at the end of the day. In a way, photographing dunes might almost a form of photographers’ recreation, and these areas are full on remarkably varied subjects that change constantly — as the wind rearranges them, as the light changes their color and the visibility of textures, and as the photographer looks at them from different angles.

On this evening I felt a bit more drawn to expanses of dune forms extending away from me for some distance. As a result I ended up with a number of photographs in which more or less horizontal shapes cut across the frame and are layered one behind the other. Earlier, when the color of the light was warmer, the dunes had a very different color — but once the direct sunlight was gone and shadows moved it the warm colors drained away and the blue tones of from the sky began to strengthen.

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

Wash and Eroded Hills

April 22, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light shines on eroded hills and a desert wash.

This was the final morning of my spring photographic excursion to Death Valley. On the last day of these visits I always seem to follow the same general ritual — I get up well before dawn (of course!) and visit one final photography location very early, then go back and break camp before leaving the park and starting the long drove back to the San Francisco Bay Area. This means that I almost always pick a familiar “sure thing” location for the last morning, and one that is not too far from wherever I camped the night before. I rarely make this a spur-of-the-moment decision, instead typically deciding ahead of time where I’ll go — there isn’t a lot of time to waste on this final, long day. On this trip I headed back to a little area not far from a familiar Death Valley icon. (I would stop at that icon, but only if the conditions turned out to be spectacularly unusual — I certainly don’t need another photograph of it otherwise, as beautiful as it is.)

I turned off the main road onto the gravel side road, slowed to a crawl, parked and got out with camera gear in hand, and quickly settled into the quiet and stillness of this place in the moments before dawn. Even though I have been to this spot many times, I’m still surprised by how quiet it is and by how few others go here. Although I know specific locations that might offer reliable and predictable photographs, once I’m here I prefer to take my time and look for and at things that I had not previously noticed. At first — and it was the case on this morning — it seems like there is little special to see, and I may momentarily wonder if I’m going to be able to find photographs. But as I slow down and begin to see, I invariably find things that I would have missed if I had not given the place some time. This photograph was the result of spotting a little path up to a higher spot — the path itself intrigued me so I followed it, and I was happy to find that it overlooked this little bit of classic Death Valley geography.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: park

Dunes and Mountains, Last Light

Sand Dune Patterns

Dunes in Shadow

Wash and Eroded Hills

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