Tag Archives: red

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

Autumn Oak Leaves, Streambed Rock

November 28, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn oak leaves on stratified streambed rocks, Zion National Park

This is one of those photographs that is not what I was looking for when I made it. We had dropped into a narrow near-slot canyon in the Zion high country, and my thoughts were on photographing the sandy bed of the little canyon along with the steep and sculpted rock and the light reflecting onto them from the narrow strip of skylight above, or perhaps looking for branches against red sandstone. So as I walked up this little canyon and sort of but not quite saw those things I was becoming just a little bit frustrated photographically – the light was colored the way I had hoped, there were footprints in the sand from those who had hiked here before me, and the colorful branches of fall leaves were few and far between and often in places where I could not see a photograph. (Though, as always, I enjoyed the sensations of walking through such a place.)

As often happens, what I really needed to do was let go of my preconceptions about what I thought should be there and instead look around to see what really was there. As soon as I did this I began to look away from the larger-scale elements of the place and see some of the smaller things and how they might make photographs – a few leaves sitting on rock, some remaining ripples in the sand, and so forth. This bit of rock was sitting a foot or two higher than the stream bed and off to one side under some overhanging plants. Unlike most of the rock there, it was strongly stratified and it had a bit of a yellow cast in places. And a few of the yellowish/tan oak leaves were sitting on its surface.

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

Red Maple Trees, Autumn

November 26, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn red maple trees growing against a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park

Sometimes I just have to make a photograph that is full of color, and finding these trees constituted one of those “sometimes.” During the latter part of October we passed through Zion on our way to points east, so we spent most of a day along the Mount Carmel Highway looking for various subjects that can be found there in a fall. Among them, we were looking for autumn foliage. (The color comes to this high country area of Zion while things are still mostly green back down in Zion Canyon.) At this point some cottonwood and box elder trees were changing, though there was a lot of green still around. However, the red maples, which seem to change first, were at peak color conditions in many spots.

As we drove along the park road, we were more or less hanging out the windows, looking for those combinations of light (quality and angle), color (or trees and rocks), and geology that might make good photographs. Most often we found ourselves looking down into narrow canyons where colorful trees lined the banks of the stream beds. Sometimes we photographed from above, but the most productive shooting involved hiking down into these canyons and then slowly walking them while looking intently for subjects. Of course, the red maples don’t require a lot of careful looking! This group of trees was in a shady curve in the bottom of a canyon, so I found a frame-filling bunch of branches and leaves and made a few exposures.

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

Arch in Morning Light

November 23, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Broken Bow Arch, Morning - Morning light on Broken Bow Arch, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monumnet — Morning light on a backcountry arch, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Morning light on a backcountry arch, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

In a land of many arches… this is another one. :-) I’ve come to understand that natural arches and natural bridges, which still seem miraculous to me when I see them and think about how they form, turn out to be almost absurdly common features in the American Southwest. My first exposure was, not surprisingly, at Arches National Monument, where there are more of them than you might believe if you did not see them with your own eyes. They seem to come in all forms and sizes: impossibly slender and long, small and delicate, big and blocky, towering above the surrounding terrain, invisible unless you happen to look the right direction in the right light, short and stubby, and seemingly infinite additional variations.

Since my first acquaintance with the more famous specimens at Arches National Park, I have had the opportunity to see a few others in less accessible locations. This one required a long and convoluted hike through terrain that held its own attractions apart from the arch – in fact, I had almost forgotten about the arch when we reached it. The photograph is from a high point near the arch – on the opposite side from our approach – and from the shady side of the feature at this time of day. From many vantage points it stands a bit too much against the sky, which did not seem to me to be the most attractive background. From this spot it was possible to find a camera position where the sky was out of the frame, and this allows the shape and texture of the arch to be seen in the light reflected from nearby walls.

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

Box Elder, Bend in the Creek

November 17, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A Utah canyon creek winds through a narrow canyon and past a box elder tree.

This little stream and its canyon was the first place we stopped at on our late-October photographic trip through (mostly) Utah. Before this we had shot a bit in the “touristy” part of Zion NP, but this place was quite a bit more off the beaten track. Truth be told, this was also my first time wandering/wading/rock hopping my way up one of these small Southwest canyons – so it was a special bit of adventure for me, and one that I took to very quickly. Although I felt, to some extent, like I already “knew” these places from reading and seeing the work of other photographers, it was still something special to be in the place for the first time.

We began by walking up a portion of the wash through which the stream flowed after it left the canyon. I quickly discovered that here, unlike in “my Sierra,” one does not necessarily try to avoid the water – which wouldn’t really be possible anyway – but instead you walk in it, hop or wade back and forth across it, or tread the soft sand and mud along its banks. Some figure that you’ll get wet, and they wear light footwear. I went “old school” and put on a pair of Gore-Tex hiking boots and rolled up my pants enough to keep the bottoms out of the water.

The light in such places – as the veterans of such shooting know – is a complex and interesting thing. Most of the time you don’t really want direct sunlight, so you (or I, anyway) seek out shade. But you do want reflected light, coming off of the canyon walls high above, taking on the color of the rock, and diffusing down into the depths of the canyon. Contrary to my well-developed shoot-very-early-and-shoot-very-late instincts, you also typically want to shoot during the mid-morning hours and the afternoon, and if the canyon is deep enough and oriented the right direction you may even shoot right through the noon hour! What a concept: sleep in until the sun comes up, eat breakfast, and then go shoot! In this little twist in the stream, at just about the point where we turned around, the water takes on the color of the light reflected from the sandstone walls around the bend, and a single small box elder with golden leaves adds a spot of fall color.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: red

Autumn Oak Leaves, Streambed Rock

Red Maple Trees, Autumn

Arch in Morning Light

Box Elder, Bend in the Creek

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