Tag Archives: red

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

Layered Sandstone and Red Leaves

June 27, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The red autumn leaves of a small tree contrast with the angles and layers of a curving sandstone slot canyon, Zion National Park

One of the most intriguing things about slot canyons – among many intriguing things – is the surprising variety of things to be seen as you progress through them. While the basic idea might seem somewhat consistent – e.g. narrow canyon with tall walls and water in the bottom – the details of the canyons seem amazing diverse and they change from moment to moment and bend to bend. This first really made sense to me in a canyon in the Escalante area where we entered by walking down a very wide and flat wash. Gradually a low sandstone “curb” began to appear along the sides of the wash and almost before I knew it this had grown to become a wall. Shortly the bottom of the canyon narrowed so much that we had to rise out of it and walk along side until we got to a point where we could again drop down into it, and it was now deep enough to cut off much of the direct light from overhead.

The slot in this photograph is in Zion National Park, and to be honest I not entirely certain where it was outside of a sort of general area. As we walked through it – and it was not a long canyon – it twisted along the base of a cliff wall and at this spot there was almost no visible vegetation except for the red leaves of one small autumn tree poking out from behind the thickly striated and twisted rock of the canyon side walls.

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Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Urban/Street

Red Bench, Ball, and Shadows

June 19, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A weathered red bench next to a suburban lawn and in front of a home with tree shadows

This probably seems like a different sort of photograph from me, but I actually have a thread of images along these lines that goes back quite a ways. They belong to what I think of as “wandering about my neighborhood” photographs, which I make on occasional walks in an extended version of my neighborhood – literally stepping out the front door and then walking. These walks encourage me to see things that I would otherwise miss, both in the general photographic sense of noticing things more when I have a camera in hand and in the more specific sense of noticing things that I otherwise simply pass by in my neighborhood.

I distinctly recall one of the first times I did this. I “saw” two things that I simply had never noticed before, even though I’ve lived in this neighborhood for years. First, in a nearby small downtown area there are buildings with more than one level – and it wasn’t until that first walk that I actually noticed the details of the second stories of these buildings. The second thing I noticed were shadows of trees. It turns out – no surprise now that I think about it – that they are everywhere. It was as if every building had trunks and branches and foliage painted on its walls. This photograph includes these shadows. It also has some other compositional elements that interest me – I’ll leave it to viewers to think about them – and there is something interesting to me about that old, weathered bench and the ball parked next to the column on the patio at the top of the concrete stairs.

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

Tree Covered Hillside, Cliff

June 16, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early autumn afternoon back-light on high country trees and shadows on a sandstone cliff face, Zion National Park

Perhaps surprisingly, trees were a big draw for me during my several visits to Zion National Park in October last year, and not just the trees that were getting their fall color. The junipers and pines are also intriguing, especially when backed by sandstone or lit from behind by low angle light as in this photograph.

This area near the eastern boundary of the park has intrigued me but also puzzled me each time I have stopped there. Nearly is a significant and named park feature that seems to be the main reason for stopping. It is an impressive geological feature… but, for the life of me, I have not been able to find a way to make an interesting photograph of it. Yet each time I passed by, I stopped and looked and pondered and (most often) did not photograph it. However, with each successive stop I began to pay more attention to other features in this spot: the big cliff on the other side of the valley on which colors fade from gray-white to red, the many trees that stand with enough space between them to allow back-light to pick them off individually, and more.

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

Autumn Maple Tree, Slot Canyon

June 12, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The red and gold leaves of an autumn maple tree against the lichen-covered and layered sandstone walls of a slot canyon, Zion National Park

When we passed through Zion National Park about a week and a half from the end of October, it was mostly too early for fall color in Zion Canyon, but things were starting to get interesting in the high country along the Mount Carmel Highway, where we spent most of a day looking for and photographing fall color, red rock, canyons, and much more. It seemed to me that the predominant sources of autumn color here were maples, and some of them were quite brilliant.

This tree was growing along a wash at the bottom of a red rock canyon which in places took on the appearance of a slot canyon. Between the tree, with its golden-yellow, oranges, greens, and bits of red, and the cliff, with shades of brown, white, red-orange, and even blue and purple, it is hard to think of very many colors that don’t make an appearance here. I of course liked the colors of this tree, but I also found the water-sculpted steep canyon walls to be interesting, with their folded shapes, lichen, and brighter color where the underlying rock could show through.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: red

Layered Sandstone and Red Leaves

Red Bench, Ball, and Shadows

Tree Covered Hillside, Cliff

Autumn Maple Tree, Slot Canyon

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