Tag Archives: range

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

High Desert, Rock and Sage

May 26, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An upturned boulder stands in a wash below high desert mountains, Death Valley National Park

This was not a day like most that you would expect to experience in Death Valley National Park, although in this spring transitional season such days are not completely unexpected. Early in the morning we had been at a very high promontory from which we had expansive views of a huge area of the desert mountain landscape, though an incoming storm muted the colors and blocked the sunrise light. Soon after that it began to snow, and we spent several hours photographing in desert mountain snow. Oddly, a portion of this time was spent photographing copious spring wildflowers!

By early afternoon the main body of the storm was passing and the clouds began to break in some places, and while it continued to rain or snow in other nearby mountains we had sun where we were. We took advantage of this to visit an old historic site high in the mountains, and then we began our drive back to the Valley itself, where I had an evening subject in mind. Along the way we pulled over at a spot where I often like to stop and look at and perhaps photograph certain things. While there I looked back across this valley, with hills briefly green from spring moisture, and noticed the juxtaposition of the shape of this layered rock in the foreground and those soft hills with moving cloud shadows in the distance.

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

Red Rock Towers

May 14, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A band of red rock towers high on a ridge in the Amargosa Range, Death Valley National Park

This is another in what might be termed the “Unspectacular Death Valley” series. ;-) As I have mentioned before, most of the terrain of this park and of similar places does not consist of high contrast, intensely colorful scenery. In reality, the color palette of much of the park is quite subtle, consisting primarily of tans and grays, with dark shadows, some reddish rock, occasionally other colors of rock, and few brilliantly colorful plants. (An exception may occur during a short period in a spring that follows an unusually wet winter, when some areas my show profuse wildflower blooms. And, of course, when shooting in golden hour light almost any landscape can become much more intense.) Over time I have come to like being in this seemingly plain landscape, even in the middle of the day.

These formations, some red rock outcroppings just below a ridge at the head of a small valley, are in an area I have visited a number of times. I’ve looked up at them and wondered how I could photograph them. This time I got a bit of help from the weather. The overall light was softened a bit by clouds, and the same cloud system gave me a darker gray sky beyond the ridge rather than the more typical plain blue sky. All of this brings out the color of the red rocks—which feel like a small, far-west outpost of Utah!—and allow the subtle colors of the vegetation to be just a bit clearer.

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

Desert Mountains, Rain

May 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Afternoon rain falls on peaks beyond a rising series of rugged desert mountain ridges, Death Valley National Park

This turned out to be a surprisingly and almost ridiculously productive day of photography, which was not at all what I expected as the day began nor at any number of times later in the day. Much of what happened was unplanned and the result of discovering things and of reacting intuitively to changing conditions. Prior to getting up before dawn to head to out first shooting location, my description of what I hoped would happen on this day or even of what I expected would happen would have had little in common with how it evolved. I have related some of the details of the earlier parts of the day already—sunrise light cut short by an incoming storm, the surprise discovery of abundant high desert mountain wildflowers, a snow storm, a first visit to an old historic site, and more—so I’ll just briefly mention the later part of the day. The winter storm, that brought some rain and snow to Death Valley National Park mountains, finally broke up, leaving a few showers high up in the mountains along with brilliant light coming through gaps in the thinning clouds, and these conditions lasted right on into the evening.

I made this photograph in the late afternoon. There was still plenty of rain or snow among the peaks, though the air was much clearer below and, indeed, some light was beginning to come through the clouds. Here I had a clear view across a portion of the valley, over the alluvial material at the base of the Cotton Mountains, and on up across the layered ridges toward the cloud-shrouded higher peaks. I had an idea for this as a photograph, but the light was difficulty and I knew that significant work in post would be required. Indeed, while this might seem like a simple natural landscape, the final version here is the result of significant work done after the fact in the digital darkroom.

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

Panamint Mountains, Spring

May 8, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Cloud shadows pass across valleys of spring-green high desert plants in the Panamint Mountains of Death Valley National Park

I like to think of this photograph as one that may offer a more truthful presentation of the character of Death Valley. As photographers, almost all of us to looking for the extraordinary—momentary instances of astonishing light, brilliant color towering clouds, dramatic light, and more. And, of course, there is nothing remotely wrong with that. It is these things that draw us to these places and which drive our search once we get there. We will often put up with, sometimes patiently and sometimes not, hours or days of what some call “blah” light in order to be able to photograph brief instance of something atypically powerful. But we must be aware that what we find and show in this brief slices of time is often special precisely because it is unusual.

A few years back I started thinking more about my relationship with the landscape of Death Valley and the surrounding terrain. I had been focusing on the extraordinary—and I still do—and on the way to such places I often passed through other areas, sometimes without taking the time to think about what I was seeing in those moments. I think that it was partially out of frustration that I arrived at the idea of trying to see these subjects more clearly and try to figure out how to photograph them. After all, I knew—at least once I stopped to think about it—that my love of this places was not limited to just the unusual and extraordinary moments, but that it also included midday quiet in the heat and subtle colors of sage country, a series of simple overlapping ridges, a bit of rock. And once I recognized this I started to think that these things, and not just sunrises and sunsets and impressive formations and unusual clouds, might make worthy subjects if I slowed down and tried to understand them. And this is one of those photographs. There is no single, impressive subject in this frame. Instead we have the almost uniform pale green of the arid mountain plants on an early spring day after rain, when the plants produce a subtle but surprising green coloration that varies as the land alternates between gullies and the tops of low hills and clouds from a cleaning storm move across the landscape.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: range

High Desert, Rock and Sage

Red Rock Towers

Desert Mountains, Rain

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